The Great Debate

The great debate continues over on RunningAhead - Is it beneficial or detrimental to run 20 miles or more or over 4 hours in a marathon training long run? Some vehemently insist that if you don't run atleast 20 miles a couple of times while training, then you are undertraining. Others, such as my coach, insist that if you run more than 18 miles or longer than 3.5 hours, it takes your body too long to recover and can, therefore, be detrimental to your training. Meaning, you would have to back off the long runs too far in advance of your intended race in order for your body to sufficiently recover. (Am I making sense?) He insists that this will not change unless I pop up to the 50-mile distances. (And yes, the thought does enter my drain bamaged mind, even though I only have one successful 50k completion - and I pooped and peed and puked all over myself in the process. . . . . Hell yeah I had fun!!!)

I suppose there will never be a definitive answer accepted by everyone, but I find people's opinions on the subject quite interesting, with each person standing firmly on his or her side of the fence not budging one iota.

And on the subject of long distances - Bizz Johnson is less than 2 weeks away. Egads! It's a Boston qualifier, so I looked up the time requirements for qualifying - oh yeah! That was a real knee slapper! And no, qualifying is definitely not in the cards. However, I am hopeful that I will finish in 5 - 5 1/2 hrs. We'll see!

Life Is . . .

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.

(Mother Teresa)

The Ridiculous Vanity of Women (Me Included)

Against my better judgment, this morning I walked out of the house wearing these stupid high heel boots and butt floss underwear, both of which I knew would be uncomfortable from the get go (I hate butt floss underwear) (Is this TMI??). Anyway, before I had even walked from my bedroom to the living room (all of 10 feet?), it was apparent this was a bad idea, but I did it anyway. Why? Because the boots looked good with the pants I chose to wear, and the butt floss eliminated that barely-there-but-still-unsightly-panty-line. So now I am sitting here at work, horribly uncomfortable, impatiently waiting for my lunch hour so that I can dash down to Target and eliminate at least one of the uncomfortable aspects of today’s attire.

And while I sit willing myself to not go to the bathroom yet again in a vain attempt to eliminate the butt floss, I ask, Why? Why do we women put ourselves through all this crap? Why do we intentionally do things like cram something akin to a thin rope up the crack of our butt, all for the sake of vanity? Most times the saner side of me prevails and comfort wins. But once in awhile the Vanity Demon gets a strangle hold on my common sense, and with every single step I take that particular day I regret the choices I have made. Sure, like most women, my legs look half way decent in high heels, but who can see my legs when I’m wearing pants?? And as far as the butt floss goes - well . . .there really is no good excuse.

Guys don’t do stupid stuff like this to themselves. The Hub actually looks at me at times and just shakes his head. I asked him about the whole butt floss thing the other day, and he said he didn’t understand the attraction some guys have for it - - he’s more of a commando type guy. Well, thanks for the 411 on that, but it ain’t gonna be happening. At least not when I’m in public.

So here I sit . . . counting down the minutes . . . telling myself, “Never again!” Yeah, right.

Canning 101

Yesterday, Shorty and I canned approximately 50 jars of apple butter, cranberry apple butter, zucchini relish, and some sort of hot pepper/ cucumber mixture. We literally spent the entire day (10+ hours?) working in the kitchen . . . together . . . with knives and boiling water . . . and we lived to tell the tale. No threats of death, divorce, or mutilation. And I think we actually hugged each other a couple of times. I know, absolutely astounding. I think 60 Minutes is going to do a piece on it. Something along the lines of “Canning and Marriage Survival 101.” It will be a true masterpiece of reporting.

Can't Think of a Better Title than Countdown to Bizz Johnson

See those cheetahs to the right? That's going to be me at Bizz Johnson. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Yeah, that's a real knee slapper, huh? Seriously, though, Coach Bill is determined to speed me up since this run is basically flat, so he's going to start incorporating more speed work after the Whiskeytown Relays on September - well, September something. And Coach Bill knows that when this happens, my voodoo doll of him comes out. So watch out, Bill. Just watch out.

Yeah, I hate speed work. Funny, I'd rather do hill sprints than do speed work on a flat surface. Running as hard as I can for 1 minute just brings absolutely no joy whatsoever to my life. Plain and simple, it sucks. But, as the old saying goes, "If you always run slow, you will always run slow. If you run fast, you will run faster." Or something like that. Don't try to go all cerebral on me. Even if I got some of the words screwed up, it really doesn't get any deeper in the thinking than that.

So anybody else out there planning on running at Bizz Johnson? Again, a real knee slapper of question considering just about the only folks who read this are my friends and family. Okay, well maybe even they don't read it. Maybe no one reads this. Maybe it's just me blabbing to myself - a much more likely scenario.