Tag Archives: Running

Spring Sunday Stats, #2

Posted on May 18, 2008 | 2 comments

The kids are in the tub, so I only have a few minutes to post before someone starts crying or splashing (or spitting water onto someone else’s butt — sorry for the interruption).

Weather: Sunny and cool (around 55 at 11am when I went out for a run). Gusts blowing west from the lake down Irving Park Road like a wind tunnel.

Miles run: 9.74, in 1:30:31. That’s slow for me, even these days, and I’m not sure why. I got a lot of sleep, had a decent breakfast, and felt pretty good, but I just didn’t have any speed in me today. The Solider Field 10-Miler is next Saturday, and I am not anticipating a PR. I’m hoping to do better than I did today, though.

What I played on my iPod during my run: I Should Be Writing #90, Geek Fu Action Grip Morning Show Lite After Dark #12, and Phedippidations #140 — yes, it was a Mostly Mur run.

Words written on Meet the Larssons: 2,220! That takes me over 75K, to 75,945 words. For the first weekend in quite a while, I took a significant chuck of time and sat my butt in front of the MacBook and just wrote. For about two hours, I turned off my internet connection, shut down Mail and Firefox and any application other than Scrivener and iTunes, played tunes from a large mixed playlist I have of songs I know well enough that they can serve as background music (mostly 70s and 80s supergroups like Styx and Rush, lots and lots of Zevon, some Johnny Cash and Jimmy Buffett for variety), and just wrote. I got up once to use the bathroom, and once to put on socks because my feet were cold, but otherwise stayed planted in the chair. It felt damn good. Mrs. Unfocused took the kids out for most of the day, so I had time to get in my run, do some work for my paying job, and still do solid time on the novel. She’s a saint.

All that, and two blog posts. I feel productive as hell. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have children to wash.

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Spring Sunday Stats.

Posted on May 4, 2008 | 2 comments

Weather in Chicago: warm (mid- to upper 60s) and sunny, the first weekend day in God knows how long with decent weather.

Miles run: 7.85 (according to my Polar RS400), in 1:04:13. That’s my longest run in months. I’m still not running regularly enough, either to keep the screaming heebeejeebees out of my brain or to be ready for the Solider Field 10 Miler in three weeks, but I’ll get there.

What I played on my iPod Mini during the run: Seventh Son, Book One – Descent, by J.C. Hutchins, Chapter 16 and part of Chapter 17.

Words written on Meet the Larssons this weekend: As one of the characters in Seventh Son says, “Two words: Jack and shit.” A combination of distractions, nice weather, actual legal work for which I am paid, a sudden realization that I needed to add a scene to Test Tube Beneficiary before it could be called done, and suddenly the weekend is over. I’m traveling to California for business tomorrow, which means I may have time to get a couple of hours of uninterrupted writing, or quite possibly, none at all.

Short stories submitted to professional markets: Umm, none. The edit formerly known as “final” is done, on paper, and just needs to be typed in. The problem is that the new scene has almost certainly generated changes that ripple through the rest of the story, which means that I need to do one more edit. Damn, damn, damn. Damn.

Hours of fun with the kids: Around 7 today. Junior and I were on our own all morning, and then all four of us spent the late afternoon in the backyard, before dinner and getting the kids ready for bed. Unfocused Girl and I worked on the tae kwon do form for our yellow belt test, coming up at the end of this session of classes at the Y, and Mrs. Unfocused joined in, while Junior held up a pad and demanded that we all punch it. All in all, a pretty darn good day. Yesterday was pretty good, too. I love spring.

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I’m It.

Posted on April 27, 2008 | 14 comments

At least, I assume I’m It, because that’s what usually happens when I get tagged. Mada tagged me for the dreaded “Six Things About Me” blog meme, and now I have to come up with six things about myself and tag six other bloggers.

Before I forget, I need to post the rules. The rules are:

  1. Link to the person who tagged you.
  2. Post the rules.
  3. Write six things about yourself.
  4. Tag six people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
  5. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their sites.
  6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

Without further ado, here are six things about my favorite subject, me

  1. I picked “The Unfocused Life” as my domain name because I’m, y’know, kind of unfocused. I can focus; it’s not like I have adult ADHD or anything. I think. Several of my coworkers over the years have suggested that I might, but what do they … hey, what’s that shiny thing?
  2. In college, I went through three majors before I settled on Political Science. The other two were Physics and Philosophy, so at least I stuck to the P section of the course catalog. Before you ask, there was no Psychology major until my third or fourth year; until then, it was called Behavioral Science.
  3. I hate doing little fussy projects with my hands. When I was around 8, my mother gave me a chemistry set for my birthday, after I begged her and begged her and begged her and begged her for it. I did one experiment: I made invisible ink, which, unsurprisingly, I couldn’t read, and then I was done. I started a couple of others, but getting these teeny-tiny amounts of chemicals into the teenier, tinier test tubes made me INSANE. In high school, I got a crystal radio kit; the instructions said you must coil the wire around the tube carefully and neatly, without any twists in the wire. I screwed it up on the second turn of the wire around the tube, and I was done. This afternoon, I helped Unfocused Girl make a set of pentominoes (we’re taking turns reading Chasing Vermeer to each other before she goes to bed, and they play a major role in the book), and I wanted to stab myself with the scissors. Not because I objected to doing a project with UG — far from it, which is why I was able to stick it out — but because drawing the grid on the cardboard, and then cutting out the shapes … made … me … all … twitchy … arg! I’m perfectly happy doing big things with my hands, however; a few years ago, my father-in-law and I spent the weekend building an enormous playset in the backyard for the kids — no problem.
  4. If I go more than a few days without running, I have dreams that I’m smoking. I quit smoking in 1992.
  5. Last movie that made me cry? Armageddon. Not the ending — it was the scene where [SPOILER ALERT] the young son of one of the crew members who didn’t know his father at all is watching the crew board the shuttle and says to his mother, “Look, that salesman’s on TV,” and his mother says, “That’s not a salesman, that’s your daddy.” [END SPOILER] My only excuse that I was watching it on an Air France flight home from Paris, and I drank a LOT of Veuve Cliquot before the movie started.
  6. My least favorite chore before going to bed is feeding Big Pink Fishie. I have no idea why; it’s the easiest thing in the world.

Enough about me; let’s talk about you talking about me. Or about you, if you must. I hereby tag:

Spynotes

Everything Under the Sun

Orbis Writings

Polybloggimous

Spontaneous Derivation

Life in Scribbletown

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I Walk Like a Cowboy…

Posted on April 1, 2008 | 2 comments

… because my quads are killing me. I was right — I’m paying for my caffeine-fueled race on Sunday. Damn DOMS.

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I’ll Pay For This.

Posted on March 30, 2008 | 6 comments

I ran the 2008 Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle 8K this morning. The Shuffle is the kick-off for the Chicago racing season and, for many of us, the true start of spring. In keeping with the kind of winter we had and the way spring has started, it was below 40 degrees at the starting line. For the first time since I started running this race (1997, I think), I wimped out and wore tights instead of shorts. I felt like a real wuss when I saw the guy with no shirt, covered in green body paint and wearing a neon green wig.

I set a personal record today by over a minute — I came in under 36 minutes, far and away my best time ever. Yes, I’m bragging, but with a purpose: I have discovered the secret to fast times, and I’m going to share it with you. It isn’t training; I haven’t done much running this winter, or any cross training. It isn’t diet; I have not been particularly careful about what I’ve been putting in my mouth the last few months. And I got less than seven hours of sleep last night.

Here’s the secret: drugs.

This morning, I arrived downtown just over an hour before the start of the race. I parked, emerged onto Michigan Avenue, and immediately began to look around for a dealer. I knew there had to be one nearby. There! I ducked into a storefront doorway, and placed my order. Minutes later, I had it: a double espresso. I gulped it down while it was still hot, and I was off to the races!

Oh, I know the side effects, but I was willing to bet I could get to the port-a-johns before the race started, and in fact I handled that issue just fine. Mrs. Unfocused says I need to put an asterix by my time this year, but I say if the major leaguers can do it, so can I. I just hope that I don’t develop a tolerance and have to move up to triple and quadruple espressos, because that could get expensive.

I’m going to feel it tomorrow, that much I promise you.

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Test Tube Beneficiary: The Final Push

Posted on March 20, 2008 | 1 comment

Until Tuesday, progress on “Test Tube Beneficiary,” my short story in progress, had come to a halt while I tried to make some headway on the novel. On Tuesday, though, I brought my MacBook on the train and got a few hundred words written on TTB. On Wednesday morning, I rewrote the last couple of paragraphs I had written on the train home the day before, and realized that while I knew how the story was to end, I had no idea how I was going to get there.

I went to the gym over lunch and had a decent run (listening to I Should Be Writing on the iPod, natch), and by the time I was done with my shower, I had the roadmap to the finish. I stood dripping wet in the locker room with a towel wrapped around my waist, tapping away on the crackberry to get it all down in an email to myself (using Gmail so none of it ends up on the firm’s server).

Between the train home and what I wrote after the kids got to bed, I knocked out 2300 words yesterday. I did more on the train this morning. I’ll be done by the end of the weekend, if not before. Then — and this is the key, this is one of the big lessons from reviewing all those rejection slips — I’m going to have to edit the thing. But not before I open up a nice bottle of wine and celebrate a little.

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Long Run Sunday

Posted on March 17, 2008 | 1 comment

Not that long ago — a few months, at most, although it seems like much longer — my regular Sunday morning run was ten miles, week in and week out. Yesterday, with a lucky combination of better weather than we’ve been having and a lack of other plans, I was able to take my first Sunday morning run in weeks. I slogged out a painfully slow one hour run of almost exactly two-thirds of my former Sunday distance. My running has gone to hell this snowbound winter, but the Shamrock Shuffle is two weeks away and I need to get some miles under my belt so that I don’t embarrass myself. Not that anyone else is concerned about my time, but I’ll know if I’m getting slower. I already know I’m getting older; I can feel it in my knees. I can tell that this running season, Aleve and I will be close friends once again.

I decided at the beginning of the year that once again, 2008 will not be a marathon year for me. I would like to get two or three half marathons under my belt again, and try for a PR at that distance, but I just don’t have time to train for a marathon. I will probably end the 2008 racing season with [insert trumpet fanfare here] the Phedippidations World Wide Half Marathon, a virtual race for entrants all over the world. I ran the first one in 2006, but had to miss 2007; I don’t intend to miss it again. Registration hasn’t opened yet, but I think Phedippidations podcaster Steve Runner announced that the race will be held the weekend of October 11 and 12, 2008 (whichever works best for you). It’s a great idea, and Steve and the other organizers put a lot of effort into making it fun.

If you’re running the Shamrock Shuffle on March 30, maybe I’ll see you there. I’ll be wearing black shorts and a white cap.

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25K! Are we there yet?

Posted on January 30, 2008 | 5 comments

I wrote approximately 900 words on the plane home tonight, which I just imported into Scrivener and which, apparently, pushed me over the 25,000 word mark to 25,091. I’d like to thank the pilot and co-pilot for a smooth ride, and my seatmate, who moved into another row even before the plane took over. If this were NaNoWriMo, I’d be halfway done by now, but Meet the Larssons will clearly be more than 50,000 words. I’m using 100,000 as my word count goal in the little progress bar widget on the sidebar, but of course I have no idea how long the thing is going to be.

I haven’t run a step in almost a week (not counting a sprint through the terminal to catch my plane tonight), and I can feel the lack of exercise. My mileage was way down last week, and is at zero for this week.

I keep tracking my word count on the book because like my weekly mileage for running, it’s the only metric I’ve got. I’m not far enough along in the storyline to be able to measure against the distance to the finish.

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Running and Writing in Place

Posted on January 23, 2008 | Leave a comment

I made it to the gym today, finally. It’s been so damn cold I can’t bring myself to run outside (if the temperature is in the single digits, I’m not goin’ out there in tights), and I just haven’t had the energy to drag myself to the Y that early in the morning. On days like that (and like this), my only shot at a run or weightlifting is to go to the gym downtown during lunch, which is a 50-50 proposition at best, because as often as not, something comes up and I end up working through lunch and not having time to go.

Today I made it, and I would like to thank all the people who signed up for gym memberships for New Year’s and have now stopped going. There were plenty of open treadmills today, and I got there at the height of lunch hour.

I’m not going to spend much time writing about my runs here. If you’re interested, and God knows why you would be, I’m keeping my public training log at Buckeye Outdoors. When I talk about running on this blog, I expect to stick to races and extraordinary events.

That said, while I was running today, I came up with a couple of ideas for Meet the Larssons, which made me feel productive. I’ve heard other writers talking about getting ideas on their runs, but most of the time my day (and night) job occupies my attention on mid-day runs. I was glad for ideas about my current work in progress, frankly, because lately I’ve been spinning off more ideas for other projects, which will be great when the novel is done, but until then they’re just cluttering up my head.

There’s one I managed to write down this morning, which is a keeper. I came up with the situation for my next novel. I’ll probably use it for NaNoWriMo, unless I start working on it before November.

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On Racing: in which the countdown begins to the 2008 racing season

Posted on December 22, 2007 | Leave a comment

It’s official: Bank of America is the official sponsor of what had been the LaSalle Bank racing series. I just received an email notifying me of the upcoming registration dates for the 2008 Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle (March 30; registration opens January 1) and the 2008 Bank of American Chicago Marathon (October 12; registration opens February 1). The race websites haven’t been updated yet, though — they still show LaSalle Banks as the sponsor, and the 2007 information. I hope they maintain LaSalle’s commitment to Chicago racing, but my fear is that in a few years, after the merger is old news, B of A will let the sponsorship go, following the pattern of out-of-town companies drastically reducing their community involvement after they take over local companies. I hope I’m wrong — it’s a big commitment to sponsor these races, and big sponsors are hard to come by.

I’ll register for the Shuffle right away — I’ve only missed a couple since my first one in 1998 (at least, I think it was 1998 — it could have been as early as 1995). No marathon for me in 2008, though. All signs point to another busy year at the office, and I won’t be able to put in the training time. Instead, I’ll concentrate on half marathons for distance, and getting my 5K time down to below 20 minutes. My fastest time is 20:36, so the 5K goal is in the realm of the possible, although I don’t think it will be easy, and I’m going to have to make much more of an effort with my speedwork than I made this past year. In 2007, my 5K time came down precisely 0.0 seconds. It was a busy year at work, with a lot more travel than 2006, and sometimes just staying level is a victory.

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