Somebody Said It's Spring?

Back to back 5 milers around Clark Park Wednesday and Thursday kept me on pace for a 5/25 week.
Laughingly it's officially Spring since Wednesday....it hasn't felt like first thing in the mornings let me tell ya but in truth this Winter wasn't that harsh,we didn't get that much snow and I can only think of one week in particular when we were below freezing for almost the entire week.

While the masses are off to Landover this weekend to compete at Indoor Nationals I'll be home pondering my next move,I'd like to be back running track this summer but I also have to consider my options if my leg speed has gone,I haven't ruled out a return to road running and maybe marathons!

Can You Hear Me Now??!!

I was determined not to fall into the same trap as last week,I missed my window of opportunity on Monday due to the rain and often when I miss Monday it sets the tone for the rest of the week,I couldn't allow another week to get away from me so I was dressed and out the door by 4.20pm for my easy 5 miler around trusty Clark Park in the glorious sunshine,Spring officially arrives tomorrow....yea!

If I needed inspiration to run  I had it no thanks to those scum sucking sob's at Verizon,allow me to explain!
Back in late September I got a letter from them telling me they had suspended my account due to in their words"suspicious activity"on my account,when I inquired to the nature of this suspicious activity I was informed there were"several phone calls to the United Kingdom!!!!!!!!!!
After my pants had dried off I pointed out to "jobsworth" that I call my Mother every Sunday,my brother every other month and my sister periodically and in order to do so I had Overseas calling plan at 5 cents a minute,why hadn't these calls been taken care of as such........
According to Verizon,because my bill had been paid late they had shut down several of my services,and YET somehow when I got caught up on my bill they hadn't reset my Overseas calling plan.......I was lead to believe they expected me to do so!!!!!!!

Over the past few months there have been several terse phone calls between me and Verzion,me telling them they could whistle for the $600 plus in Internationals calls they'd coned me into, them citing these calls were my responsibility them trying to placate me by taking a couple of hundred bucks off the bill but the bottom line was they sent me a bill for $475 at the start of the month that I had no intention of paying......till they shut my phone off last week forcing me to cough up the $475....PISSED does NOT begin to sum up how I feel but I need a phone so congrats Verzion,I blinked you won.....go fuck yourselves!!!

The Week That Wasn't!

We've all had them,one of those weeks when the shit well and truly hits the fan,and while I feel I'm still "slopping out" from last week here's hoping this week will allow me back into the ebb and flow of things.
Rather than saddle you w/ all the gory details of the shitefest that was last week let me just say there were a few days when a run would've seemed the ideal antidote to the shit storm I was confronting,Thursday saw me not for the first time and w/out a doubt not the last time doing my best Ricky Watters impression on the loading dock....."for who?for what??!!!" and they wonder why I have a stuffed Eyore on my pc in my office......it's because I do ALL the donkey work around here!!!!!

Here's to a better week all around!!!

Mixed Results

A strange weekend,spring like temps,Daylight Savings,getting Morrissey tickets,Spurs losing and getting two 5 milers in to round out another 5/25 week.......
Sadly neither of my two runs included a track workout as I had hoped I may have to introduce midweek trips to a track to get my much needed speed work in,the plan was come April to up my 5/25 to 6/30 w/ 2 repeats anyway which would require a weekday sojurn to a track anyway so beginning this week I will look to introduce that into the mix now to get some interval work under my belt and also try and free up some of my downtime on the weekend which as the moment seems in short supply.

So  a week that kicked off w/ Brass Monkeys" temps and snow on Friday suddenly morphed into almost summer like temps over the weekend 54 degrees Saturday and 58 degrees yesterday which saw a welcome "three s's" shades,shortsleeves and shorts,it's been a while since that's been the norm but it was a welcome taste of what's to come.
Ditto for Daylight Savings,I was more than willing to lose an hours sleep yesterday morning secure in the knowledge that come 7pm it's still light out,another reminder that Winter is on it's way out.

So yeah a week after they went on sale I managed to snag Morrissey tickets for his upcoming Philly tour date on April 6th,I'll spare you the play by play from last Friday when tix went on sale and I couldn't access the website from work.....#$%, but I refused to be raped by the likes of StubHub etc for $29.50 tickets that were going for $74 on line so I bided my time and hit the Tower Theater box office on Saturday afternoon and got my lower balcony seat w/out breaking the bank or selling off a body part to do so,no doubt I'll be found waxing lyrical about the show on my new music blog http://Last Nite A DJ Saved My Life  after April 6th.

After a run of threeteen unbeaten games in the Premiership Spurs lost 3.2 at Liverpool{please no jokes about us being robbed,pickpocketed etc} which ended the weekend on a down note but you can't win them all,I was a Spurs fan when the sun came up and was still one when the sun went down,one loss does not change that.

A League Of Our Own

Having dodged the "winter storm" that was scheduled to hit us on Wednesday I write this as the snow is falling on Friday morning,it remains to be seen how badly this effects my plans to run over the weekend,I had hoped to hit the track to get some much needed repeats under my belt but if this snow sticks the track may well be off limits,we'll just have to play this one by ear.

Any concerns I may slid back into bad habits this week were so far put to rest,forced to sit out Wednesday due to the wind and rain I then had a 3pm Spurs Europa League game yesterday afternoon on the schedule,it's not that long ago off the back of one day off I may've easily blown off my run in favour of the comfort of my recliner and watching the second half when I arrived home at 4pm,but in my continued efforts to get back into full blown training mode I set the dvr to record the whole game and upon arriving home just b4 4pm I got changed into my running clothes and right back out again clocking a 36 min 5 miler b4 enjoying a shower and then settling in to watch Spurs breeze past Inter Milan 3.0.
Spurs wins are always enjoyable.....but when I've gotten my run in prior to  them they're even more satisfying!!

Calm b4 The Storm?

After the brouhaha that was Monday it was nice to have a day of tranquility at work yesterday which leant its self to a even  tempo 5 miler post work.
Of course life can never be that simple and straightforward and the weather people are calling for rain/and or snow tomorrow....GER!!!
Rain while not great,I can live w/ if I have sit for a day I still have enough leeway w/ my schedule to go 5/25 this week,Snow presents all manner of issues not least of all the potential for missing a day/days depending how much of it we get....if we get any at all just as I feel I've built momentum again.

While it's easy to slag off the weather people for getting it wrong  I have to confess to having a blind spot for Sheena Parveen the Channel 10 Philly NBC weather person,GOD DAMN SHE'S HOT!!!!
Normally I only check the weather if it's going to effect my ability to run the next day but since Sheena began doing the #10 weather I find myself checking the weather every day now,a bad day in my home is if Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz is doing the weather!!!

In Like A Lion.......

It remains to be seen if the old adage"In like a Lion,out like a Lamb" will apply to this March,I do know it was "Brass Monkeys" out there yesterday morning at 5.40am waiting for the trolley to get to work......hey count yourselves lucky I went w/ the Millwall Lion and not a photo of a Brass Monkey freezing it's balls off!!!

Any good feelings I had gotten from my weekend were soon bludgeoned out of me as yesterdays workday sought to test my level of serenity,another old adage about how "music soothes the savage beast" was never more apt as Paul Young's "Secret Of Association" took the edge off on my lunch hour and then thanks to some Duran Duran via Spotify after lunch meant the urge to choke the living shit out of the next chav to test my patience was no longer front and center in my mind!!

It's been a while since I've been wound up like that period muchless faced w/ a run post work but it seemed like the ideal "tension buster".....however!!!
It's all well and good going off at 800m/mile pace....but when you've got a 5 miler on tap that logic??? for want of a better description tends to blow up in your face.
By loop #3 I was feeling the torid pace I'd set off at and for a brief moment I thought about a "get out of jail; free card" make today a 4 miler and then bump tomorrow upto 6 miles,WTF 10 miles over 2 days is 10 miles yeah??????
I think the word I was looking for was........BOLLOCKS!!!! I'd dug my own grave and now I had to deal w/ it,"don't do the crime if you can't do the time" they say so I gritted my teeth and saw it through,one thing I pride myself on is seeing it through to the bitter end even on a  day when it's all gone pear shaped and remarkably upon reaching the safe haven of home I discovered I'd somehow ran another 36 min time,I was expecting slower given how deep I was forced to dig over the final loop and "home straight" but somehow I'd started the week how I left off last week.....here's to a better work day and more even paced running this afternoon!!!

Braggin' Rights

As I predicted my weekend unfolded as planned,Saturday was shot to shit by a twenty two hour day on Friday,as is my won't the first Friday of the month sees me at Club Fluid on 4th St w/ my fellow 80's lovers as we take up the dance floor for five hours,I think my running gives me an unfair advantage over the rest of the crowd as my cardio levels tend to outnumber the masses,but what really kicks my arse is the fact I'm up at 5.30am every weekday morning so by the time I crash out around 3.30am I'm toast.
Eventually clambering out of bed at 11.35am on Saturday morning I could tell this was shaping up for a FFFA day....fit for fuck all!! and I wasn't wrong!
If it hadn't been for the fact I was down to my last tea bag I may have never gotten out the door,somethings I can live w/out.....Tea is NOT one of them so I made my way up to Fresh Grocer,w/ hindsight it was for the best as Sunday was already busy to begin w/ w/out adding food shopping into the mix....

It wasn't my intention to be up at 7am yesterday....then again I hadn't planned to call it a day at 8pm on Saturday but there you go that's what happens when you're almost 50 and you throw a 22 hour day into the mix the day b4!!
After the all important first cup of tea of the day and catching the previous nites episode of "Ripper Street" that I'd slept through I was ready to run,it's been a while since I've gotten out on a Sunday morning at 9am but it's good practice for the upcoming weeks and months.
W/ hindsight I wish I'd thrown my gloves on as it was a bit brisker than I thought, I'm cursed w/ thin blood and piss poor circulation so more often than not when other runners are out there in running shirts and shorts I have to bundle up.
After 2 loops I got used to the tingling in my fingers....either that or frostbite had set in! but I completed my 5 loops and my 5/25 week.

A hot shower,another spot of Rosey Lea and breakfast b4 settling in for the important business of the day the North London derby between my beloved Spurs and arsenal,w/ all due respect to my Gooner buddies Eric and Dave.....COP THAT! 2.1 to Spurs and not only are we third in the Prem but 7 points ahead of our North London rivals,there are still 10 games to go in the season so no time for crowing but for now braggin' rights belong to the blue side of North London!

The Three S's

Steady on! four for four this week and five in a row if you include Sunday,all signs indicate a return to the attitude I expect from myself.
I toyed w/ the notion of just taking it easy today....that lasted about thirty seconds as I made my way down Cedar Ave, given Saturday's run will come off the back of a twenty two hour day I figured that would be a better day to "go for a jolly" around Clark Park so I focused on trying to emulate what I've done thus far this week.

I know that reaching the full level of the three S's {Speed,Strength and Stamina} is still a few weeks off but w/ my conditioning slowly starting to return and my body getting used to the rigours of training day in,day out I can feel the slight improvement in my overall fitness and general attitude while out training,were in not for the fact this weekends calender is working against me I'd be off to Temple's track on the weekend to get some much needed repeats under my wheels but fingers crossed next weekend that'll happen as piece by piece the jigsaw continues to put its self together.

Having more or less negotiated all ten crossings of Chester Ave w/ little in the way of having to stop for on coming traffic I was stopped dead in my tracks at the light for 45th St and Baltimore Ave as I began the "home stretch"......passers by were no doubt curious to the pedestrian w/ an apparent case of tourette's syndrome cursing up a storm as he waited for a brake in traffic!!

36 mins,when Monday comes around it'll be interesting to see if I can continue to lower my times or just get into a 36 min groove,like I said the three S's are making there way back.....