KRAC Blog

Achilles tendonitis. Patellofemoral syndrome. Gout. You guys get injuries associated with over-training, I get something associated with eating too much fois gras.

Right now I'm starting a massive anti-inflammatory cocktail, and we'll see how it goes. My most optimistic projection is that I'll be able to run on Saturday, but I can barely walk right now. I'm not sure how it'll respond to swimming-- I'll give it a shot tomorrow.

I was afraid of this-- my brother was diagnosed as a gout sufferer years ago, and he probably gave it to me. Of course, he probably has chlorophyll now instead.

Someday I'll be dead, and when that happens the surviving KRAC members can have a Bill Altreuter Memorial Race to benefit gout research. Won't that make a handsome shirt?

I've just about finished "Moneyball", an entertaining and worthwhile read. I can see it having the effect on baseball that the West Coast Offense had on the NFL. A few teams will figure out Billy Beane's core ideas, and adopt them-- the Dodgers may be right now, for example. Then everybody will say that they are playing moneyball, even though they are really just emphasizing the same stuff they always did. Watching the Mets as I read Bill James' "Annuals" every year I kept asking myself stuff like, "Davey Johnson is a smart guy-- doesn't he know that Rafael Santana has a secondary average of about .192?" I'm sure Davey did, but there is only so much a manager can or cannot do. When the Mets fired Bobby Valentine I thought, "Dumb move." When they hired Art Howe I thought, "What did Art Howe have to do with the way the A's have been playing?" Now, having read the book, and seen him run a respectable enough team, we have our answer. Art Howe is like Warren Burger-- he has his job because he looks like what someone who has that job looks like -- not because he has the first idea of what the hell he is doing.

How to score at the Republican National Convention:

"Whisper you've got the keys to Dick Cheney's undisclosed location and he's away getting a total blood transfusion for the weekend.

"Explain you just scored some good shit from Bob Dole, if she knows what you mean.

"Propose to marry her and state your intention to have intercourse for purposes of procreation."

Now that I am done getting my brains beat in on my trial I am free to watch the Olympics, just in time for most of the track and field. I love this stuff, and it's only ever on TV every four years, so I'm really just digging it. When I was a schoolboy I was terrible at all of it, but I had a whack at most of the events available. I was really a middle distance/distance runner, but St. John the Baptist DHS wasn't giving anything up by letting me have a go at a different event from time to time, and when you are hanging around the track all afternoon you try a lot of stuff besides.

I suppose I loved cross-country most, but what I wanted to be was a miler. To build speed, I sometimes dropped down to the 880; to build endurance I sometimes ran the two-mile, the deuce. The 440 was my father's event-- he'd been a great quarter miler in high school, but the quarter was too tough for me. It's the longest sprint, and I couldn't hack it. I was respectable at the 220 though, and sometimes filled in as the third leg of an 880 relay. The Hundred was out of the question for me-- I was never intended for that sort of speed. My senior year the steeplechase came into our league, 3000 meters with hurdles, and I had a go at that. I don't have a natural lead foot, so I could take a hurdle without getting my steps down. This would have been useful if I had been faster, and it helped in the steeple, although not enough to compensate for the fact that everyone else was faster there, too.

The high jump (Hoogspringen in German-- I love the internet) and the pole vault were things I tried, but both really belong to true eccentrics. I could long jump and triple jump, but mostly I was just goofing around. The weight events-- shot put, discus, hammer-- were never going to happen for me-- I was six feet tall and 110 pounds. If I tried the hammer it'd be even money which would get thrown.

I suppose, in a way, my running career is like my day job-- maybe I'm not at the front of the pack, but you can't get me off the track either.

And maybe I should be playing Beach Volleyball.

Sneaking a bit of peek ahead, I realize we are almost there. I don't want to overstate this, but there are really only two more tough runs out there. This Saturday's 12 will feel like a breeze, and that's worth thinking about. As long as we have ever trained before this was 7-- it's the Ridge, so I'd give us a 9 on that. The Boilermaker actually is 9, and we are so far on beyond Zebra at this point that nine sounds pleasurably easy. A single digit run? How sweet!

Of course, as I write this, I feel like I have been beaten with sticks. I want an ibuprophin drip. The Gu absolutely helped (and it comes in so many delicious flavors, too! Don't you wonder what "Just Plain" is like? I mean, not enough to try it, but don't you wonder? It's probably the effluvium from a DuPont plant. "Mmmm! This Gu tastes like New Jersey!"). I think I'll have two on the course for our 18. I also found that Gatoraid instead of water was a boost.

I'm trying to figure out what might work for breakfast. I don't partake as a rule, and when I've had a Cliff Bar it doesn't seem to have done much for me. Plain bagel? Stack of flapjacks? Lobster tails and unlimited Mimosas?

After last Saturday I'm concerned about chaffing issues. Would anyone mind if I just wear olive oil this Saturday, in honor of the Olympics?

Missed my eight. I am on trial, and it is screwing up my whole day. I have managed to get my two fours in, and I hope that this means that I am rested for Saturday.

Even though I'm running more this summer than I can ever remember, I am racing less. I missed the Subaru, for example, and have not been inclined to try any of the cross country races, like the Mud Run, or the Rut Race. I was concerned about how the Linda Yalem Run would fit into our schedule, but I got my application yesterday, it's October 3 this year, and that more or less fits into our taper. Sort of. It's a cross-training day after an eight miler, but I can adjust.

Well, that was interesting. 15 shouldn't have felt like that-- I hit the wall like I don't think I ever have before just before we got to the Grand Island Bridge, and although I was able to pull it back together to finish, I was spent. I was actually cold when I got home, like I had no calories left to burn.

I think the answer is going to include (A) a better breakfast. I had a Cliff Bar, which is about as much as I feel like choking down at that hour. I need to rethink that. (B) sports drink instead of water. I want the carbs. (C) Gu.

I recovered fairly well-- rode my bike to work, where I am now-- but I need to be stronger on these long runs, and I think being properly fueled is going to be part of the answer.

Sometimes sports tells you everything you need to know about someone. Via Tom Tomorrow, who adds, "I've heard from a few rugby players who conjecture that what we're seeing, while unsportsmanlike and a clear foul (Bush has left his feet and made contact above the shoulders), might be the moment immediately after a incompentently-made dirty tackle, with the arm coming down, instead of the moment before an incompetently-thrown dirty punch, with the arm coming up. But I've also heard from a few who think it's exactly what Yale's yearbook staff said it was. We'll probably never know. Decide for yourself. Either way, both incompetent and dirty."

It has been a couple of years since I'd been for a run in Central Park. When my brother lived on 92nd Street we'd go run around the Reservoir (twice, I think, for 5k from his apartment). Yesterday I ran a loop around nearly the entire park, an Olmsted masterpiece improved by the presence of women in sports bras. There are parts with some modest grade, although nobody would describe any part of it as being hilly; it is mostly in the shade, and it is busy. There are people to pass, and people who passed me, bicyclists, horses, and the pleasure of being in a green place. Being able to see the towers of Manhattan as you run is what really makes this a pleasure. I ran five miles out of pure exuberance.

We can stop at Burger King for the BK version of an egg-a-muffin before we turn around and go back. Too bad Sneekers clam stand isn't still there at the corner of Main and Bailey . . .

I'd like to add that tomorrow morning, we will have been running for OVER AN HOUR by the time the sun rises at 6:17am.

Sounds like we won't have Bill to kick around this week. I'm looking for Jim to pick up Bill's considerable slack.

The joys of remodeling: My refrigerator is in the basement, the contents of my kitchen are on the dining room table and my stereo is unplugged and put away for the duration. And they haven't even started yet.

Just finished packing. This sort of trip is the kind of thing that usually trows me off the track: I'll be in court all day for several days, and I'll need to work late to get ready for the next day's proof. But Saturday's 15 has me terrified, more scared than the back to back to back trials I've got stacked up. So I've got my shoes and shorts and singlets. I've got my anti-blister system. I've got a map of Central Park, and I've printed out Higdon's workout for the week. Instead of sitting in my room reading transcripts and drinking Sapporo, I'll be going 3-7-4.

Ask A Guy Who Just Ran, Like, Nine Blocks.

Jim, in case you missed it, the Summer X Games are on ESPN this week.

Also, Jeff Simon just made me order the new live Monk CD with a bonus DVD of an early sixties concert performance.

I wanted to do my seven last night, when I got back from NYC, but A wanted to go out to dinner. EGA wanted to go to Towne, and A felt like that was the right neighborhood, but maybe a restaurant or two over was more what she had in mind, so we went to Aqua. I had a respectable smoked salmon sushi thing, and what the menu described as "Pork Wings". These turned out to be three pretty meaty spareribs in an undistinguished barbecue sauce. It probably wasn't KC's Masterpiece, but I wouldn't sign an affidavit. EGA had a disappointingly mushy mushroom risoto, and A had a seafood cassolet. It had three or four nice looking langostines, mussels, clams-- but, weirdly for a dish where the broth was probably the nicest part, there was no bread. Our waiter, who was clearly just biding his time until the next "L'll Abner" revival, was a Bad Service Hall of Fame candidate, although amiable enough.

I ran my seven today at lunch.

A few years back, when Bill and I bet on the Yankees-Mets World Series, I said the Mets couldn't possibly win with "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" at first base, meaning John Olerud, who apparently has a skull with the consistency of a soft shell crab, which requires him to wear a batting helmet in the field. Bill paid off with a bottle of Glenmorangie, which was nice. Now the Yanks have signed Olerud to replace Jason Giambi, who has proved that quitting steroids causes tumors.

I never got to take a nap after yesterday's 13-plus mile run. I spent the day feeling like I had a crushing hangover, with the added twist of being unable to walk.