Running

By the request of a very important reader I hereby present an in depth narrative of my participation in the Rex Lee Run.

Wake up. Darkness. What time is it? Can't read the clock without my glasses. 7:45, groan. My alarm is set for 8:00, can't sleep. Get out of bed, walk downstairs. Enter the kitchen and grab a Nutri-Grain bar and a banana for breakfast. Chase that down with some V8-Splash Strawberry Banana Smoothie. Now we wait. I wander around the house doing menial tasks until it's time to leave for the race. I put my contacts in, pin my running number to my shirt and attach the timing chip to my shoe. I decide to run in long sleeves because it's going to be cold.

8:40, I walk to my car- it's covered in ice, grrr. I start up the engine and grab the scraper. Scrape, scrape, scrape. I hop in and cruise over to campus. The parking lots on the corner of Canyon Rd and University Ave are not as packed as I expected. I find a spot, leaving everything but my keys in the car. I join the other participants wandering in from all directions to the track. The cannon sounds signaling the beginning of the 10K. I jog around the track to try to warm up my cold muscles. Stretch, stretch, I'm as ready as I'm going to be. I find a place to leave my stuff while I run, and take off my warm-up pants figuring my legs will be alright. My hands are already cold though; should have worn gloves.

They're calling us up to the starting line for the 5K. I make sure my iPod is all set and make my way through the crowds to a position about 1/3 of the way from the front. The cannon sounds off again and the crowd is moving. My iPod is set on repeat to Dragonforce - Through the Fire and Flames. The energy of the music drives me forward.

The race begins with an uphill climb along University Parkway. I try to find my pace amongst the crowd of varying speeds. The ground flattens out as we curve into the parking lot behind the Harman building, the 10K course meets up and some of those runners make it even more crowded. Slightly downhill heading towards the Marriott Center, I'm keeping my pace, and feeling pretty good. We turn onto 1430 N where a confused girl is attempting to drive her car despite the numerous barriers and traffic cones. More downhill as we hit 900 East and head past Heritage halls to the Law building lot. I'm still feeling pretty good, but I know what's coming up: The Hill of Death.

As we round the corner onto East Campus Drive a runner at the front of a cluster makes a crucial error by misunderstanding the course direction and takes an entire group off course until they hear the others yelling for them to turn around. The 10K runners split off to the left as we turn onto 900 N, the start of the Hill of Death. Luckily this year I knew it was there and was ready for it. I cranked up my music a little louder, leaned forward, breathed harder, and took it head on. I fought up and up as I felt a cramp forming on my right side. I needed to get off the hill as quickly as possible before the cramp could destroy me. My breathing probably sounded like I was dying, I needed oxygen so badly.

The Hill of Death was over, I had conquered, but not without a price. The cold air was thin, and taking its toll on my system. I could no longer feel my fingers, and my skill in moving my hands was reduced to that of a 10 month old infant. I had to slow my pace as I reached the flat ground in order to get some air in me. We continued along South Campus Drive and then switching to the pedestrian path down the hill to 800 North. I had hoped reaching the bottom of the hill would allow me to pick my pace back up for the final stretch on flat ground. Sadly, I soon rediscovered that the road along 150 E and Canyon Rd is uphill, not a lot, but you can feel it in your legs. I held my pace up as much as I could, promising myself that as soon as I hit the track I'd put in everything I had left.

I round the corner onto 1430 N and head through the gate to the track. This is it, I'm going to use every drop of Oxygen my lungs can muster. My legs aren't tired, I simply can't get enough air to move with. I speed up to as fast as my poor lungs will allow. My headphones jostle off my ears and I whip them around my neck to keep them off the ground. I follow around the turn at the north end lining up for the final push. I try to get on my toes for that last little speed boost. My left side begins cramping up to join my right side. My breathing is ridiculous and I feel like my lungs will explode. Finally I step across the finish line, making sure to hold my speed until I hear the *beep* sounding my completion. Then I walk, I walk and I breathe. My legs are fine, but I need oxygen and I need it now. I step out of the way to pause for a minute just to breathe. Then I walk to the volunteers who are clipping off the timing chips and I head for the tables with oranges and water. I begin to remember just how cold I actually am. I can't hold the water because I can't move my fingers, and the juices from the orange feel warm on my skin. I find a heater and stick my hands in front.

I wander back towards the track to find my coat, and warm-ups. I stick my hands in my pockets and find my leather driving gloves, my hands go in. To my pleasant surprise I also find a winter beanie and that goes on my now cold head. I check my time and it's over.

Reflection upon a Saturday

Today was quite busy. For some reason all of my weekends in March are scheduled up with events. They all filled up about mid-February. Normally my weekends are pretty relaxed, no strict plans, just sort of whatever comes up. But March, March is packed.

This morning was the Rex Lee Run. So I got up at 7:35 (my alarm was set for 8, but I couldn't sleep), ate a light breakfast and prepped for the run. About 30 minutes before start time I went out to drive over to the course. First I had to scrape ice off my windows, I was not pleased to be needing to scrape ice on a day I needed to run. My lungs don't do well in cold weather. In the winter I run in the indoor track because of this. The cold air hurts, and is too thin; it deprives me of desperately needed oxygen. Considering the fact that part of my left lung is stapled closed, and that my training hasn't been as intense this semester (so my VO2 max was not as high as it could be) I need all the oxygen I can get. Anyways, I went to the race and boy did I feel the lack of oxygen. When I finished my legs weren't even really tired, but I couldn't get enough oxygen. Which is really annoying. I wasn't even pushing the limits of my muscles, instead I was limited simply by the thinness of the air. I didn't do as well as last year, but (as I said) I didn't train as hard. I was able to run in under 26 minutes, not great compared to my ~23 minute run of 2007, but meh.

After the run I had to rush home and get all cleaned up to give a presentation in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Spring Research Conference. Luckily my request for a time after noon was granted, as I didn't arrive on location until about 11:15. My presentation went well, and my movies worked this year, which was nice. The audience seemed to be engaged and interested, so hopefully the judges liked it too.

After that I bought some good lunch foods, went home, ate a whole bunch of food, watched some X-Files, and slept for a few hours. At which point it was time to begin preparations for the ward activity. We signed up to host some people for dinner for the ward activity, so Papa Funk and I got home from shopping (after he got out of work) around 5:30 and began cleaning up the house and cooking. We were all set at the specified time of 7:00. The ward was meeting at the chapel for appetizers at 6:30 and then was splitting up according to assignments to the host houses for dinner. We waited, and waited, figuring it was normal for people to be late. Finally around 7:40 we got tired of waiting and called the people in charge to find out what was going on. Apparently, since we were home cooking and not eating appetizers at 6:30 they assumed that we were no longer participating (despite the 4-5 phone calls throughout the week in which we confirmed our plans to make dinner). So they didn't send anyone to us. So we had food for about 10 people, and only 2 people to feed.

So Papa Funk and I said, "Screw it." and sat down to an excellent meal (it was very good), while watching an episode of X-Files. And now we have good food to eat for the next week or so....

Now I'm exhausted, and going to sleep.

P.S. to Olympus:
Where have you been all week! We've only talked for like 5 minutes. You need to stop having meetings and start only having one job again. ;-)

Running

I woke up Thursday morning at about 6:50 am. My alarm was set for 8. I couldn't sleep. So I got up and headed out on the Provo River Trail. I ran all the way down to Geneva Road and back, a 6 mile trip. I've never run that far in one go before. I don't know why I did it, but I did. Part of my life is becoming very complicated right now. Perhaps I just needed some physical exhaustion. I'm hoping that I will sleep better tonight, but I don't think I will.

Rex Lee Run

Today was the Rex Lee Run. I am tired. I did fairly well. I'll try to give as much information as I can, without just giving away my identity, since all the results are nicely posted online. I will give you a hint though, I'm one of the 100 people on this page. Hehehe. So I'm pretty happy, in the top 200 overall. I totally beat my target time of under 24 minutes. Hope anyone else that was there reached their goals.

The Music of a Broken Heart

I've discovered a short term cure for the crushing depression of a broken heart.

First, load up your iPod with the following music:
- James Blunt - You're Beautiful (Radio Edit)
- Benton Paul - Dying to Find Out
- Dashboard Confessional - Ghost of a Good Thing
- Good Charlotte - Say Anything
- Guster - Keep it Together
- Matchbox Twenty - Shame
- Matchbox Twenty - Cold
- The Ataris - So Long, Astoria
- The Ataris - In This Diary
- The Ataris - Looking Back On Today
- Nick Lachey - What's Left of Me

Second, start the music playing and run 4 miles.

Third, hang out with your most awesome friends in the world. People who, when you walk off to find cream cheese in the grocery store, try to hide a 12 pack of beer in your shopping cart just for the heck of it (Thanks Christine).

And that, my friends, is how to successfully run away from your feelings for a few hours.

The Nerdy Runner

I was running in the SFH yesterday and on my second lap they closed the West Annex, so instead of 5 laps to a mile I had to do 7 laps per mile. But I had already run 2 of the 5 laps. So I did the calculation in my head to determine precisely how many laps I would need to do on the small track to make my two miles.

1/7 = 0.142... (I only calculated it out to three decimal places, have you ever tried to do long division in your head while running?)

2/5 = 0.4

3/7 = 0.426

So I switched from already having run 2 laps (in fifths) to 3 laps (in sevenths), and added a partial lap to make up for the missing 0.026 miles.

Unfortunately during that time my iPod didn't play "White and Nerdy", but that would have been very appropriate.