2012 – Page 4 – PretenseSoup

New Year’s Resolutions

Or, “In Which I Start to Get My Race Schedule Together.” These aren’t exactly resolutions, since I don’t really make those (does “stop getting injured” count?). But I guess they’re things I’ve been thinking about since the beginning of January. I’ve also been thinking about my diet, which isn’t going well. Bah.

In order for me to explain why signing up for a bunch of races is a bit more troublesome this year than other years, let’s look at some results from races in my 2011 season:

Lupton Metrish Invitational (3 miles): 28:54
Mad City 50k: 4:57:57, 4th place women overall, 3rd place in my age group
Ice Age 50k: 5:58:14, 3rd place in my age group
Run to the Rhythm 5k: 22:36, 2nd place in my age group
Waunafest 10-mile: 1:23:42
Madison Mini Marathon (13.1 mi): 1:50:50
Safe Harbor 10k: 45:20, 2nd woman overall, 1st in my age group
Literacy Network 5k: DNS
Baltimore Marathon: DNS
Haunted Hustle Marathon: DNS

I’m pretty good at shorter distances, not awesome at middle distances, and good at ultra distances. You might also spot a pattern toward the end of the season if you look closely.

Yes, I went down with an ankle injury at the end of September, 2011 and my mileage is only now getting back to where it was (in the 35-40 miles per week range). So I have been understandably hesitant to fill up my schedule with races, worrying about every twinge, every bump, every step that suddenly could trigger more weeks of PT and swimming instead of running. But then I got an email from the Badgerland Striders (the group that runs the Ice Age 50 mile/50k/half marathon race in mid-May) telling me that registration for those races has opened. I am in no condition to do the 50k again (nor do I want to–I’m doing no races this season longer than a half marathon), but they do have a half marathon which a) is through beautiful countryside and b) is on challenging trails and c) fills up really quickly.

There isn’t really a good term for “leap of faith” for atheists, since atheists don’t particularly take things on faith. And I suppose I do have some empirical evidence that I’m getting better (I run largely pain-free and have been logging about 40 mpw lately). But regardless of whether it was a good idea, I signed up for the half marathon at the Ice Age 50. This joins a few other events on my calendar:

Lupton Metrish Invitational. Of course.
The 10-miler at the Syttende Mai the following weekend. B has agreed to run with me! I’m very excited. We didn’t race together at all last year except the Lupton Metrish Invitational.
The 50-miler at the Centurion Wisconsin in August (yes, a bike race! I’m excited.) A friend who is a Serious Cyclist has been giving me advice, so while I don’t expect I’ll place or anything, I think I can put together a training plan and make a good showing of it.
Figure-8 the Lakes, also August, probably 50 mile distance (a group ride instead of a race; a relative of B’s suggested she would do it with me.)
A fall duathlon, probably the Dousman Duathlon.
Half marathon at the Baltimore Running Festival. Okay, I was injured in Fall of 2010 and 2011, so this is really beginning to sound like a Dutch Book is being constructed against me (i.e., it’s a losing bet). But I need to try this again.
Half marathon at the Haunted Hustle. Ditto.

I’m kicking around a bunch of other races, but nothing is for sure:

Grandma’s. Dan and Claire said they’d do the half if I did it, but it’s in Duluth. ~~Also I’d probably have had to have registered in November 2011 or something.~~ Actually, I looked it up–it’s a lottery and it hasn’t opened yet.
Dances with Dirt–nice location (Devil’s Lake, and there’s a half), but it’s in July. Not good running weather.
Waunafest 10-miler–a fun race, but half of it is through an industrial park.
A triathlon. I’m afraid at this point. You’ll notice I didn’t list my tris above because they were kind of terrible failures (my duathlon was pretty good but not spectacular).
Other actual bike races or duathlons. There are not a ton of duathlons that I can reasonably get to. I don’t know.
Madison Mini Marathon. Possibly the most over-hyped local race there is.
There are a lot of local 5k/10k races. I’ll probably at least do the Berbee Derby and the Literacy Network runs, since they have good t-shirts and I do them every year (except when I’m injured). But what else?

I’m open to suggestions, Internet. I don’t like to travel more than an hour from Madison for a half (Baltimore is an exception, since I’d be going there anyway) and no more than 30 minutes for anything shorter than 10 miles.

To finish, here’s a great picture B took of me (with his iPhone, no less!) before the start of the Ice Age 50k last year. You’d guess I’m always happy right before a race. (After a race–different story entirely.)

Oh, about my repeated placing in ultra distance (i.e., longer than 26.2 mi) distances: it’s kind of a cheat. There aren’t many women my age running those races, so I have a better than average chance of placing. It seems lots of younger women are busy having kids and careers and things that prevent them from training for 60-70 miles per week. Most ultrarunners seem to be middle aged, which makes sense–the kids are old enough to amuse themselves for a while on a Saturday morning. So it’s not me, it’s everyone else.

Em oi! Vacation, day 4

It is hard not to observe that the average American these days enjoys a good meal. Food is everywhere, cookbooks are bestsellers (despite the demise of cooking), and there are even two full cable networks devoted to cooking shows. Cruises, as the phenomenal Dave Barry has pointed out, exacerbate the problem, since there’s an actual rule that you cannot be on a cruise ship and not eating. Still, when I get stuck standing in line for a sandwich behind a man who is in his left hand holding the crust of a pizza he just finished consuming before lumbering up to the deli window to order something with extra cheese and extra mayo. And then, before leaving the window, to see the man just leave the pizza crust on the counter instead of turning around and putting it in the waste basket five feet behind him. Well, I start to feel a little snappish toward other human beings.

It’s true.

This particular cruise had all of the rooms named for Impressionist painters. I am damned if I know why. All of the Impressionists were male and white, of course; the only room named after a woman was the Cassatt Lounge and no one went in there. That was weird. The restaurant on the Lido deck (the buffet) was named The Cezanne. It had this painting hung several times on its walls:

That was weird because it was hung at irregular intervals, as though the decorator of the ship had assumed that either no one would notice that there were several iterations of the painting or perhaps was unable to get more than three different Cezanne paintings to cover the entirety of the large room, thus necessitating the repetition. Bryan and I, working on our various projects, sat at a table for an hour or so and contemplated the judgmental features of this particular lady.

This comic is filed under: NC1763.V3 L86 2012b, for Drawing. Design. Illustration–Caricature. Pictorial humor and satire–Special subjects, A-Z–Vacations. For more comics from this trip, check out: Vacation, Day 1.

To finish things up, here is another photo. This one was taken in Mexico, but I guess it could have been about anywhere. It reminds me of an important principle in my photography, which is that photographs tend to turn out better if I get as close as possible to the subject. Also, they turn out better if I use autofocus, since my poor eyesight means that I sometimes manually focus the lens into fuzziness. Oops.

Em oi! Vacation–day 1

The TSA guy let me mail the knife back to myself. This is a service provided by the old ladies at the customer service and information desk at the airport in Milwaukee. They buy the envelopes, take enough to cover postage, and drop the packages off on their way home after work. I have nothing mean or sarcastic to say about the people at MKE. They were super nice and classy. Also there is a Recombobulation Area at the airport.

UGH. So this happens sometimes with stretch denim I guess? I had a (really new) pair of jeans go when I was in Baltimore in October. I guess I’m going back on my diet for now.

The flight wouldn’t have been SO bad, except that at 21:00 (9pm) my 12-hour cough syrup wore off, so the last three hours of travel were all spent coughing my lungs out. Super lame. After we got to our hotel (about 1:00am) we called a nearby greasy spoon and got greasy, greasy food delivered to us. And we ate it while sitting on the carpet and watching the Discovery Channel. And then we slept for like ten hours, except for me because I woke up coughing at 8am and went for a run.

These are a couple of comics I drew on day one of our trip. I’ll have some more as the week goes on–it turns out they take a fair amount of time to clean up, since I sketched them freehand in pen. We’ll file them under NC1763.V3 L86 2012, for Drawing. Design. Illustration–Caricature. Pictorial humor and satire–Special subjects, A-Z–Vacations.

Here’s a photograph which I took with my new camera. I think it is one of the best I have taken of late.

It’s at least half not me though–it’s hard to get a bad photo of Sam (my sister-in-law).