Peony and Chives

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The Five Stages Of Stormtrooper Grief

The Five Stages Of Stormtrooper Grief
Originally uploaded by JD Hancock

I am in stage 3

Crystal Head Vodka

12K Race: What did it mean?

Picture from Cool Running

This was my first race since the ignomie of Boston. I have kept track of training runs and times for the last few years, so I did not have high hopes for today. Training has been solid, but nothing like how I was burning-up the track last Summer. I hoped and expected that a solid pace of 7:30/mile would be achievable and this is what I hoped to do today.

It was a perfect sunny morning in New Hampshire--warm enough to be comfortable at the start but not so warm that overheating was a problem while racing. I hit the first mile mark in the 6:40's and I felt fine so I just kept it up. I was still still slightly under 7:00 minutes per mile at the 3 mile mark and felt great. The only problem is that this course is famous for having a big hill between miles 4 and 5, so it seemed prudent to save a little energy for that.

I somehow missed the 4-mile marker and I think this contributed to some lost time. At the 5-mile mark I was a couple of seconds off of a 7-minute pace, but the hill was behind me and so I could open things up a bit. I ran easily to the end, which is roughly 7.5 miles and did it in around 7:11 per mile. This is the same as my best showing in a 10K, which is a bit of a shorter course. Also, I achieved my 10K PR by really pushing myself hard, while today I could have easily kept up my pace for a few more miles.

So, what does it mean? On one hand it is a nice validation that in spite of a feeling of not ever getting back to the level I was at last year, I am actually more-or-less where I was. It does however point to the benefit of racing: Only racing will make most of us put out full effort and without full effort we have no idea what our true capacity is.

235 46/85 M4049 53:27 7:11 David Pecchia 47 M 245 GLRR Chelmsford MA

Nice Weather, Must-Buy-Fruit

We went to COSTCO to buy glasses for the middle daughter--oddly, she is really psyched to get them.

While there, we bought: Grapes, bananas, a pineapple, a box of oranges and blueberries. There is something about when it starts to become sunny and warm--I crave fresh fruit.

Also Mojitos. Which is good since the mint is growing in abundance.

But

We went to a Brazilian place last night and now we (but especially the wife) are craving the Caipirinha--which does not use mint.

A day of minor errands

--Rain was expected today, but when it didn't come I decided to change my oil. This is normally a pain since my oil filter housing is surrounded by stuff and the only thing that works is a strap-wrench that I couldn't find. I did incidentally find my huge pipe wrench that I couldn't find when I had a clogged pipe, while looking for the strap-wrench. I improvised by stuffing some old bike inner-tube along the perimeter of a slightly too large oil filter wrench socket. It worked! Actually, it worked much better than the strap-wrench does.

--I found, while working under the car, that an anti-sway bar bracket was rusted and broken. This may account for why my car wobbles when I go above 50 MPH. I ordered a new bracket since it is only 12 bucks with shipping. I am still on the fence about buying a new car or fixing the large expensive things I know my current car needs.

--Went for a 5K jog with my wife and her dog. I don't get much valuable training out of these runs, but I enjoy the company and she likes my coaching. Plus, it probably helps to loosen me up for the hard run I plan for tomorrow.

Had an open faced chicken and gravy sandwich and a beer for lunch.

Picked-up the middle daughter from school--bumps had appeared on her face. They are gone now that cortisone has been applied and Benadryl given.

Installed the handles on windows in the new study. Slightly amazed that I didn't loose them in the 5 years between the windows going in and now.

Showed a contractor around the outside of the house. Considering replacement of windows, roof and other external repairs.

Burned a small accumulation of boxes that had built-up in the basement.

Made a blog post.

The Burlington Vermont Foot Bridge to Nowhere

Depending on your browser, you will see a city map of Burlington VT, but then it will turn black and you will see the street view of the bridge.

View Larger Map

This is a really substantial bridge which you have access to from the road on the right. If you cross the bridge, there is a path that goes about 50 feet and then just ends with a residential backyard fence. Our hypothesis is that the neighborhood on the left--part of Burlington's North end--insisted on having an access bridge put in when the highway was built. Later, none of the houses at the end of the bridge wanted a right-of-way cut through (or next to) their land.

These were not enjoyed on the same night

Not that it matters, it just happens to be the case.

Last night I had this home made Limoncello which has been steeping for about 2 years in the freezer. Strong in more ways than one and really appeals to my Southern Italian heritage.

Last Sunday was the first warm weekend day in a while--that we were home for--and so I fired-up the outside grill. We have a little hibachi that we use year-round in the fireplace. The short ribs of beef, thinly sliced and with Korean marinade are great, but do take up a lot of grilling real estate. So, they only get done on the big outside grill.

We finally had the last of these sausages, stewed in spaghetti sauce for dinner tonight.

New Hardware, Old Textiles

Back in the day, if you finished a race the prize was a race t-shirt. Now you get the shirt just for signing-up for a race and that is that. Marathons now usually give medals for completing the distance.

The first t-shirt is from 1980 and may well be the oldest garment I own. There is a 28 year gap between the first and second shirt.

Sideways Smoke

After roasting some coffee in the oven I noticed a sunbeam. I did not realize at the time that I lack software for rotating the image.

Sorry

You can see a little turbulence from the cold air entering the room through the open window.

Gathering up and spreading out...

I spent the first half of this beautiful sunny Saturday spreading 30 bags of topsoil onto a part of our front yard that has settled. After I finished that, I gathered-up the firewood I had earlier made out of one really large branch that fell and one smallish dead tree I had felled a few weeks back.

My wife had the harder job of taking our three daughters + one friend to "The Mall" for most of the day.

Further update...

I would have never thought that a cramp in my calf would result in a bruised appearance the next day on my shin. The front of my leg didn't hurt at all, even though it looked as if I got whacked with a 2 X 4.

The 20 mile mark, so part of the way up "Heartbreak Hill".

Photo by Ted and Mary Tyler from Cool Running

Marathon After-Action Report:

Everything was going great for about the first three miles, then suddenly I got a giant cramp in my right calf. I had to stop and massage my calf, then when I started back up, it hurt just as bad. I didn't want to quit but didn't see how I could keep running when I couldn't even walk. On the other side of it--how could I quit at three miles? Anybody can run three miles and I trained like a dog for this.

I got back out there and just tried to adjust my stride: In stead of landing on my forefoot and then springing forward, I landed on my heel and pushed-off with it. It was still painful but I could move.

Normally, I will run 20-30 seconds per mile under 8:00 for the first half to two thirds of the way, in order to build-up a cushion of time for when I get tired and have to go slower. The problem with this inefficient stride is that I was putting-out 7:30 - 7:40 effort but only making eight minute miles. So, I got tired out more quickly and at the end of it had no time saved-up. I took about 20 minutes more for the race than I had last year.

So, what happened? I cannot say for sure. I do not usually get cramps in my calf except maybe toward the end of a marathon and then one can get cramps anywhere due to lack of fluid and electrolytes. I normally tie my shoes fairly loosely in races since it is uncomfortable to spend over 3 hours with tight shoes on. Possibly I overdid this. Also, I put glide onto my toes since I had gotten a giant blister in the New York City Marathon. Either of these two things may have caused me to tense-up my calf. I did notice that my feet were sliding around in my shoes and this would be consistent with my theory.

My last marathon before this was effortless (to the extent that a 26.2 mile run can be), so I suppose I was due a hellish one just to even things out. When I resumed running back at the three mile mark, I didn't expect to finish: I figured that I would just get myself closer to the finish and thus make reuniting with my family a little easier.

Checkpoints 5k 10k 15k 20k Half 25k 30k 35k 40k

0:23:46 0:49:02 1:13:50 1:39:43 1:45:23 2:05:48 2:33:39 3:03:00 3:34:00 0:08:43 3:48:20 11995 8291 1685

In which I commit heresy

Just before the 2 minute mark on the Fleetwood Mac song and just before 1:50 on the Pink Floyd one, there is a strong similarity (these are not the best videos--but the best ones I could find that were embeddable) in the musical progression. Both cases have low, wispery, chant-like lyrics and then the main motif of the song bursts-forth. I'm sure it has been done a million times, but Fleetwood Mac's version was done in 1979 and Pink Floyd did theirs in 1982. I won't deny the obvious differences--Pink's has their usual sinister undertones compared with Mac's sunnier sound. But still, I found it interesting. Until today I couldn't have said for sure which one came first, though I suspected that Tusk came out before The Wall.

Some change seem to be pointless--at least to me.

A couple of days back our dishwasher STB and we needed a new one--we heard it coming since it had started making an unprecedented noise for the last month or so. One remembers quickly how much of a pain it is to wash dishes by hand and we create a lot of dirty dishes. I figure that over the life of the last machine (7 years) we did 10 loads per week, so figure 3,500 loads total.

We ordered a new one yesterday and it came today. I had earlier today removed the old one and especially remembered to salvage the L-Connector/adapter. You see, rather than just having the inlet to dishwashers be a 3/8" pressure fitting like what everyone has, they require you to buy the adapter. So, I was ahead of the game since I saved the one from last time. Nope! They changed the inlet to a 3/4" hose connection. Wonderful! The local hardware store didn't even have it but the next town over did,-so I blew an hour going out there, getting it and returning home.

What was sort-of my fault was forgetting that dishwasher makers do not include a wire clamp on the electric box. This is something I could have salvaged off of the old one, except that the delivery guys had already hauled it off. Luckily I had one, though it did take a while to find it.

The last irritant was with the mounting brackets: They used to come already attached to the machine. Now you have to do it yourself and it took me an extra ten minutes to decipher how.

A job that should have taken me an hour was stretched-out to 3-4. It is done and hopefully will not leak, short-out or give any other problems for a while.

Last Training Run, till the big race.

But it felt like the last run I ever want to do: I did about 6.5 miles and at the 9 minute mark began to do intervals: 90 seconds of sprint followed by 90 seconds of recovery. I did 14 of these cycles by the time I got to the end and I was wrecked. Then, my wife was just heading-out for her lunchtime walk with the dog. She got me to join her but 1/4 mile into it she revealed her plan--to run with the dog. She ended up jogging pretty much the whole two miles. It was not fun, though probably good for me as a cool-down. Of course the company was welcome and she set a new PR for making it all the way up a big hill at a run.

The big race is large for a couple of reasons: There will be around 25,000 (official) runners, about 1,000,000 spectators and not least--the darn thing is 26.2 miles long.

Note: I may in fact go for a jog between now and the race but it will not be any great distance or speed--just a kind of stay loose thing. Also, I am number 11442 and you can set-up free email or text updates here

The Drum

In a more perfect world, the drum would have been on a pallet and I would have had a pallet jack. As it was, there was a 55 gallon steel drum of what we called, "green" in the basement of the Sun Valley Lodge and I needed to get it to the loading dock.

We used pretty much only two kinds of cleaner in Sun Valley: "Pink" was more or less like windex and "Green" was for everything else. Both were highly concentrated in that you would fill your spray bottle with 2 oz of cleaner and then the rest of the way with water. The green was a great cleaner, but you had to rinse your hands soon after each time you used it or your skin would peel. One could wear rubber gloves but most found it difficult to clean quickly with gloves on.

We had gotten a delivery of these cleaners and it all came to the Lodge, but one of them was needed over at the other hotel, the Sun Valley Inn. Now, I could have rounded-up some of my housemen, but we were fairly busy and I didn't want to take them off their normal duties. I would at least try, via my mind and modest strength,- to move this drum.

I figured the drum weighed around 500 lbs, but it is not as if I planned to just pick it up and carry it out. I had a dolly and an elevator, so all I really had to do is figure out how to get the drum from the floor to the deck of the dolly--maybe 3-4 inches high. I found that I could--just barely--tilt the drum onto its edge and then maneuver it around. I wedged the cart against the wall so it wouldn't roll away and then got the edge of the drum onto the cart. Finally, I took a run at the barrel and tilted it to level, enough that it slid onto the dolly. Wheeling it out to the loading dock was uneventful. I was rather proud of myself and planned to brag heavily at lunch time.

Later, a bunch of housemen and supervisors from the Lodge came over and picked-up the drum. Soon after they drove-off with it came word that there had been an incident. They had been wheeling the drum into the Lodge on its edge and the drum got away from them. It badly lacerated one guy's leg.

At lunch our manager asked me with a penetrating gaze, "David, how did you get that drum of green out to the loading dock"? "Um, oh I just used that cart that we always use. No problem."

Postscript: I did the math just a few days ago and found that moving the drum was really at the limits of my capabilities. It took 140 lbs of force to tip the thing onto its edge and since I only weighed about 130 lbs back then, it is about all I could do since the force was horizontal. It must have taken quite a bit more force to lift it onto the cart, but I could take a run at it. In this step, control didn't matter, so I could go all-out. In the tilting-up step I had to apply just enough force or I could have tipped the barrel onto its side. It might have broken-open but at the very least, I would have never gotten it back upright.

Here is the math...

Yesterday's run

I was a little ambivalent about how fast I should go on this last training run. On one hand, a really fast time would provide encouragement for the marathon, which is Monday after next. On the other, at this late stage it is probably best not to push too hard since there is only about a week to recover. I split things down the middle: Pushed hard enough to run the thing in sub-8 miles, but not by very much. I got good conditioning out of it, a small amount of confidence-boost and I should recover in time for the race.

One thing that helps about this course is that I expect to take around 1 hour and 45 minutes (this time 1:43:55) so the run can be divided into 7, 15-minute segments:

1. Home to Dahlia's friend Fanny's place (on the bike path just before the Westford line,
2. Then the end of the bikepath,
3. The start of curve road
4. The end of curve road, where it hits Concord road
5. The end of Concord road where it hits Rt 4
6. Rt 4 through town and to the bikepath
7. The bikepath back home through the swim and tennis club.