These Are The Things I Can Do W/out

"In violent times,you shouldn't have to sell your soul in black and white,they really really ought to know
Those one track minds,that took you for a working boy,kiss them goodbye you shouldn't have to jump for joy,you shouldn't have to
Shout,shout let it all out,these are the things I can do w/out come on,I'm talking to you,come on"

Shout-Tears For Fears

The other title I had in mind was "A Rant In E Minor" it was "one of those days,in short..........
Almost breaking my toe
Precious getting locked in someones room for 26 hours
The Holiday Meal at work
The treat of rain to scupper my run

So my toe,in what can only be described as a freak accident I walked into the dining room sofa in the dark and cracked my toe into the base of it,it's my own dumb fault for not putting the light on as I went from my room to the kitchen,it hurt like hell and if you ever saw the "Simpsons" episode when Homer lets rip w/ a loud obscenity that scatters birds in the sky and cuts to Ned Flanders in his back yard saying"good lord,that's the loudest profanity I've ever heard" that sums it up.
When I looked at my toe b4 leaving for work this morning it didn't look like it was broken,I doubt I could've worked all day on a broken toe given I'm on my feet for several hours and although it's swollen and discoloured below the toe nail {a red/purple colour}I was able to run on it so I guess I'm ok.....note to self turn the light on next time I going to the kitchen!!!!

Precious getting locked in someones room for 26 hours,whoever said cats are meant to reduce stress not induce it never met my cat!!!
When I'm home I like to let her have the run of the house so it's not uncommon not to see her for an hour at a clip but as I was getting ready to go to bed on Tuesday nite I thought it was odd I hadn't seen her for a while so I went down to the living room,dining room and kitchen to look for her,no joy I figured she'd found a new hiding place I didn't know.........
I heard claws pulling at the rug and as I followed the sound I found myself outside one of my house mates room,somehow Precious had snuck into Jean's room and when Jean left for the evening at 8.30pm she unknowingly locked Precious in her room!!!!!
Fast forward 26 hours and Jean returned home at 10.30pm last nite and yours truly pleading to get my cat back,like my toe it was a freak accident but I was relieved to have my cat back in my room when I went to bed last nite.

The Holiday meal at work,I've been at the hospital for 12 years now so I've had to endure the wankathon that is the holiday meal for 13 years now since xmas 99.
Never have I witnessed such greed and gluttony over the years,we have a chronic obesity problem in this county not to mention people starving and yet once a year hospital employees act like they've never eaten a meal in their lives,I lost count of the number of employees I saw walking the halls today laden down w/ Styrofoam containers of food from the cafeteria,not to mention seeing various departments sending employees over to the cafeteria w/ trolleys to wheel food back to their department.....it's a disgrace!!!
I don't eat in the cafeteria any day of the year so I can't be a hypocrite and show up for the holiday meal,that's just me but I do get the point of view that a lot of employees feel they're over looked,over worked,under paid and under appreciated so if they can get something for free why not grab it w/ both hands?.....but if they were giving away a dog turd in a tote bag for free would they show up in droves?????
I say nix the holiday meal,take the money it costs to provide it and donate that food and money to Philabundance or local homeless shelters to those who need a free meal.

The treat of rain this afternoon,I needed a run on several levels,knowing my toe wasn't broken,wanting to blow off some steam after the holiday meal and the issue of Precious,the ghosts of Xmas past gathering and hovering above me,wanted to stay on pace for 6 day/50 miles,notching a 6th day in a row.
When I returned from lunch at 2pm it was raining.....great! but when I left at 3.15pm it had eased off and when I got home by 4.15pm it had stopped so I had at it,my third consecutive 8 miler to put me at 34 miles for the week w/ a rest day on tap tomorrow b4 another 10 miler on Saturday b4 8x800m repeats on Sunday to round out my week at 50 miles.

Blah Humbug

It must come as no major surprise to those who know me that I am NOT the poster child or spokesperson for the holidays,I am very much anti holiday that said I try not to rain on the parade of the majority who seem to revel in this time of year.
I'd been surprised how deep into December I'd gotten b4 my "holiday blahs" surfaced,I think it's safe to say w/ 11 days to go that "cheque is no longer in the mail"

Another 8 miler this evening,another tomorrow will set me up nicely for a 6 day/50 mile week
This time last year it was a lot colder when I was out running as I recall the nite of Thur Dec 16th vividly.........
After a couple of weeks where my Tuesday and Wednesday runs fell by the way side due to the rain it's nice to have a sense on continuity going this week,backing up to last week since Saturday I now have 5 consecutive days which is something I took for granted when I routinely cranked out six day weeks week in week out.

If Time Magazine Thinks So...................................

"You are the hole in my head you are the space in my bed,you are the silence in between what I thought and what I said
You are the night time fear you are the morning when it's clear,when it's over you will start you're my head you're my heart
No light,no light in your bright blue eyes I never knew daylight could be so violent a revelation in the light of day
You can't choose what stays and what fades away and I'll do anything to make you stay"

No Light No Light-Florence & The Machine

An ex girlfriend once said my bedroom was quote"a shrine to Sarah McLaughlin",I guess these days my blog has become a shrine to Florence Welch......and I'm ok w/ that!!!!!

Time magazine said that "No Light,No Light" was their "Song Of The Year" and frankly who are we to argue w/ them,c'mon it's Time magazine not What's On In Stoke Newington for crying out loud, I'm delighted it's the new single even though xpn is now playing "Shake It Out",hell any Florence & The Machine on the radio is good and I also learnt she'll be appearing on "Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year" which I'll be dvring seeing as I'll be getting my New Years,New Wave on at Sex Dwarf that nite.

Needed my 8 miler this evening,there are five words that are guaranteed to screw up my whole day"Hill Rom beds coming in"and from 7am till 2pm the dock was tied up w/ a Hill Rom 18 wheeler backed onto the dock not to mention new Hill Rom beds,mattresses and headboards all over the dock.....not quite sure where I'm expected to put my deliveries......I'm not an unreasonable man,I realize you can't omelets w/out breaking eggs but there has to be a better way of getting 50 beds into the hospital w/out tying up the loading dock for 7 hours.

Different Gear,Still Speeding

If it's Monday it's a 10 miler,always good to kick the week off on a good note and if I'm coming off either a long run or repeat on Sunday it's always good to have that nice easy 10 miler to get the previous days run out of my system.
I also feel it sets the week up nicely,miss Monday and there's the chance the week can get away from you,granted the last two weeks my Tuesdays and Wednesdays have been rained out but I'm hoping this week to get back up to 6 days a week/50 miles a week so kicking things off tonite w/ an easy 10 miler helps sets that up.

Didn't get the chance to mention the Beady Eye show at Terminal 5 on Friday,I was a mega Oasis fan,saw them at least 9 times in 13 years including two memorable Wembley Stadium shows in 2000 that make up their "Familiar To Millions" cd and dvd.
Wasn't surprised to hear they broke up last year,if anything I was surprised it didn't happen sooner given the fractious relationship between Noel and Liam Gallagher but from the ashes of Oasis came Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds and Beady Eye.
Having seen both bands and heard both cds I have to give the nod to Noel,better singer,better song writer,better stage presence but that's not to say Liam and Beady Eye don't have their charm,the bigger question is how long b4 Noel and Liam settle their differences and reform Oasis???

Always Up For A Little Afternoon Delight

OK so first up it should be stressed that Kevinrunningfree hasn't become that sort of a blog{I save that material for my diary thank you very much!!!}but now that I have your attention here's my 4x1mile repeats.........

Try as I might I could not force myself out of bed at 8am when the alarm went off and w/ a Spurs game at 11am I was now looking at hitting Temple's track at 2pm for my repeats.......see see what I did there, a little play on words,afternoon workout,afternoon delight!!!!!
I arrived at Temple at 2.05pm minus the dozen or so guys on the infield playing football I had the track to myself so barring a wide received going out of bounds to make a play and ending up in lane 1 I was good to go!!
Mile warm up,warm up being the operative word the sun might've been out but it was a little on the brisk side,no shedding my 1/2 zip fleece this Sunday!!
Having not done mile repeats for a while I felt 5.10 per mile was perhaps a bit too rich for my blood this early on so 5.20 per mile w/ 4 laps at 1.20 per lap felt like a good baseline to work off of.

#1 mile 1.19-1.23-1.24-1.18-5.24.2-I was pleased w/ the opening lap but just like on my 2 mile repeats it seemed the pace dipped on laps 2 and 3 but I was able to rally on the last lap,from little acorns big trees grow......

#2 mile 1.18-1.23-1.24.1.16-5.21.5-Signs of improvement on the opening and closing laps,I felt I was paying more attention to the fundamentals,working my arms knee lift and leg turnover and also focusing 100% on what I was doing rather than allowing myself to drift off mentally.

#3 mile 1.17-1.23-1.23-1.18-5.21.4.Two thoughts on this one,where did the 1.17 opener come from? and thanks to the skin of my teeth I was on for a repeat workout where each interval got faster than the previous one,was there enough juice left in the tank??

#4 mile 1.17-1.23-1.24-1.13-5.17.4-Nice finish,good to know a 1.13 is in my wheelhouse this early on into my repeats.

Like my 1,000m repeats last week I feel I've opened the campaign w/ reasonable repeats and while there's clearly room for improvement{eliminating those 1.23/1.24 laps for starters}I feel I can move on to the second round of 1,000s and mile repeats w/ a sense of optimism

Getting It Done

Sadly time constraints yesterday meant no run,I was heading upto New York again for a concert to see Beady Eye at Terminal 5 and had to be on the 12.07pm R7 out of 30th St which didn't allow me the time to get a 3rd 10 miler for the week in,more's the pity.

Inspite of yet another late nite{seriously three weekends in a row now I've gotten home at 3am!!}I was up by 10am and out the door by 11am to run 10 miles on the extended out and back along Cobbs Creek Parkway.
The pace might not've been brisk but the weather sure as hell was,seriously and I speak from first hand experience when I say this it was warmer at 2.15am this morning walking home from 30th St than it was when I ran at 11am!!!

I was quite content w/ the easy pace,yesterday had been a long day,sitting down on the 11.52pm train out of Penn Station felt so good!! and w/ a 4x1 mile repeat on tap tomorrow there was no need to balls out....even if I wanted to,which frankly I didn't I was happy to get the 10 miler in period,tomorrow when I run my first mile repeats since August 10th will be another matter.

Didn't See That Coming....

Well the good news,it stopped raining.....,the bad news it got a lot cooler,my first reaction as the front door closed behind me this morning at 5.45am as I left for work was fuckin ada it's cold!!
And frankly 11 hours later it wasn't that much better as I set off for my 10 miler.

First nite I wore my thermal ski hat tonite and frankly I could've done w/ my gloves as my finger tips were feeling a tad numb by half way and b4 anyone scream wuss I'm not blessed w/ a great deal of circulation in my fingers so they tend to get numb quicker than most people.

I have the luxury of having tomorrow off from work as I'm off to New York City again for a concert {Beady Eye} so there's major potential to squeeze my run in b4 leaving at lunchtime which would be nice given how I lost two days to the rain.

Tuesday nite saw the season finale of "Sons Of Anarchy",I've loved "Sons" since I discovered it in season two and this season has been an unbelievable roller coaster ride,I gave up trying to predict how I thought it might end weeks ago as every episode left my jaw dropping closer to the floor but frankly I could not've predicted the way this season played out......damn now we've got to wait till September for season five.....son of a bitch!