Category: Doing

Marathon Training Update: Gaining Speed

I’m final­ly get­ting there. I’m up to Week 13 of Hal Hig­don’s Inter­me­di­ate II pro­gram and things are going great. When I start­ed run­ning 18 weeks ago, I had no idea how to approach “race pace” runs. I was so out of shape that I could­n’t even imag­ine where I’d end up for the marathon. I dreamt of run­ning a Boston qual­i­fi­er in my first marathon, but that did­n’t seem very like­ly, even on a friend­ly Philadel­phi­an course.

Today I test­ed myself to find out what I might be able to accom­plish and I was pleas­ant­ly sur­prised. I ran 10 miles in 1:12 and change, which put me at a 7:12/mile pace, three sec­onds ahead of the 7:15 I’d have to main­tain to qual­i­fy for Boston. With a lit­tle more than a month to go before the Philadel­phia Marathon, I’d like to think that, bar­ring injury, I might even improve a bit on that pace.

I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself though. I’m run­ning my sec­ond 20 mile run tomor­row morn­ing from the usu­al start at 21st and Poplar out to For­bid­den Dri­ve and back. I’m going to see if I can get the Garmin Vir­tu­al Part­ner fig­ured out to help me main­tain an 8:15/mile pace tomor­row. I want to be very con­sis­tent and care­ful now that the mileage is reach­ing a peak to pro­tect myself from injury.

It’s a real treat to get out­doors and enjoy the fall weath­er along the Schuykill and Wis­sahick­on. It’s a lit­tle chilly when I leave the house, but feels com­fort­able by the time I get warmed up.

Fast for­ward 24 hours from the pre­vi­ous four para­graphs: I just got back from run­ning 20 miles in 2:41 and change, rough­ly 12 min­utes faster than my last 20 mile time. I tried hold­ing 8:15 miles, but found myself rip­ping off 7:45 and faster splits from the 14 mile point onward. I feel great. I hope I’m not peak­ing too soon, but I think if I keep chal­leng­ing myself over the next month, I’ll be in great shape for the marathon.

I feel like I have a Boston qual­i­fi­er in me if I run smart. Do you think I can do it? If any­one has qual­i­fied for the Boston Marathon and can share train­ing insights, espe­cial­ly with respect to the taper, let me know in the comments!

Posted on by J T. Ramsay

The Phillies Win!

Today is just unbe­liev­able. Helen and I drank our fill (phill?) at the Mem­phis Tap­room after the game end­ed. It was sim­ply amaz­ing. I can’t believe they’re real­ly going to the World Series. They should do this way more often.

Helen and I will be at Game 4! We can’t wait!

Posted on by J T. Ramsay 1

Dub Colossus — A Town Called Addis

When two of my favorite crit­ics rec­om­mend some­thing, I lis­ten. First Matt Cibu­la, my favorite world music crit­ic, tipped me to Dub Colos­sus’ new album, A Town Called Addis. Now Jeff Weiss has sec­ond­ed that rec­om­men­da­tion. I’ve lis­tened to the album once and liked what I heard. I’ll be spend­ing more time with it this after­noon as I prep for tonight’s cov­er­age of the third and final Pres­i­den­tial debate for comcast.net’s elec­tion blog.

Be sure to check Mat­t’s blog, Cave 17, for a thor­ough­go­ing review and Jef­f’s for a taste of what Dub Colos­sus are about, mp3-style.

(This post is mak­ing me miss what Sty­lus Mag­a­zine offered in a big, big way.)

Posted on by J T. Ramsay

What’s Don Draper Doing?

It would be an under­state­ment to say I’ve been remiss in writ­ing about Mad Men this sea­son. The show con­tin­ues to bog­gle my mind and last night’s episode, “The Jet Set,” was no excep­tion. So while I’m still scratch­ing my head, let me sug­gest you read Alan Sepin­wal­l’s take over at What’s Alan Watching?

The hobo trope Alan teas­es out is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing. The Bob Dylan ref­er­ence may be a lit­tle Young Indi­ana Jones, but we’ll see where it goes.The com­ments are worth check­ing out, too. Sev­er­al read­ers take issue with how “Sopranos‑y” it felt, and I can’t dis­agree. If that show had a weak­ness, it was those indul­gent, clunky flashback/dream sequences.

Some com­menters also feel that this episode was an homage to Felli­ni and Anto­nioni, which is plau­si­ble, but poor­ly exe­cut­ed. Don would’ve been repulsed at a “Sick Soul of the Bour­geoisie” par­ty, yet he felt seemed almost at home, even in the most awk­ward moments.

I’m still curi­ous to see how every­thing pans out in the final two episodes. I cringe at the prospect of this show tak­ing a turn for the bizarre at the last moment.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay