It’s Not Just Me!

As I’ve been chronicling these past few weeks, I’m on a 12-week program to make myself run a half-marathon. I’ve been quite faithful to it, but have become frustrated about my speed. My goal has been to increase distance rather than speed, but I figured that regular training would just naturally bring at least a slight increase in pace. Not only has that not happened, but my pace has actually slowed, sometimes by 30 seconds per mile. Now, thanks to the Times, I know that I’m not a lazy weakling and can blame it on the season:

One reason performance declines on sultry, humid days is that working muscles have to compete with the skin for blood. Directing more blood to the skin removes body heat and helps keep your body’s temperature from rising to dangerous levels. But that can mean less blood reaches muscles. At the same time, when your body becomes hotter, muscle enzymes speed up, burning glycogen more rapidly, depleting stores of the sugar that the muscles use for fuel.

Whole article here. Basically, even real athletes are unable to maintain a decent pace (a relative term, of course) when it’s hot. So this, and the fact that blood pools in the lower extremities in hot weather, explains why my legs feel so heavy when I run, even when I’m not that fatigued. The depleted sugar also must explain why I’m eating such insane amounts of dried fruit lately. I guess the one good thing about this is that I’ll be in awesome shape come this fall (October), when I’ll enter a real half-marathon. For now, I’ll plug along as best I can and try not to feel too bad about my inferior pace.

 

I Take Requests…

My coeditor sent out a plea for squirrel lore, as he’s currently spending the week kicking back in the no-squirrel zone of Nantucket. Most news stories that came up on Google were negative (ground squirrels in San Diego have the plague, red squirrels in the UK are dying out), but here’s a cute one from Kent, Ohio: Black Squirrel to Hover Over Kent. Apparently some guy there is so taken with the black squirrels that scamper around his yard that he’s going to project an image of one, Batman-style, during this weekend’s fireworks display in his town. Thanks for showing some squirrel love, Michael Pritt! We have several black squirrels in the neighborhood here in Brooklyn, and they *are* handsome little critters. Photo below for those of you who’ve never seen one–sort of the black panther (or, um, Dark Knight) of the squirrel kingdom:

 

Link Updates

I don’t generally pay a lot of attention to the widgets in my right-hand column, but this morning I did, and I realized my blogroll is no longer an accurate reflection of sites I regularly visit and enjoy. So I just did a little housecleaning and shuffling, and now you can check out my latest favorite handful of sites if you wish.

 

Progress: Week 3/Week 2

This week’s running schedule was a little less consistent than it was the previous two weeks. On Tuesday I developed a mysterious swelling and ache in my left big toe that has persisted until today, neither getting worse nor better. I don’t recall doing anything to stub or sprain it, but now every time I put full weight on it (you never realize how much weight the big toe carries until it starts to hurt), it feels like someone is stomping on its main “knuckle” joint. A few Advil pre-run gets me through the workout, but I’ve been running a little slower than usual. Then I woke up on Friday with a sudden head cold, which is still making me feel crummy, and it’s been raining off and on all day, which was all I needed to skip today’s run. So altogether, I’d say I did about two-thirds of what I should have done this week, which I guess is okay, especially considering that this coming week’s training regimen is the same. I think I should be able to make up any lost ground.

Week 2 of the Hundred Push-Ups fared better; I’m now up to 46 push-ups per workout. Tomorrow I’m going to do another “exhaustion” test, per the program, to see what level I should be working at for the next few weeks. In order to stay within my current training level (level 2), I’ll have to crank out at least 21. Otherwise, I’ll be demoted to level 1.

 

Explain this to me, please…

I’ve been researching airfares for a trip I’m taking in September with some friends and trying to find both a fare that won’t cost me a month’s rent and an itinerary that won’t take longer than driving (to Central America). Regarding itinerary, it looks like unavoidable cruelty on the departing NYC end–I can’t find anything for less than $1,000 that will give me a departure time later than 6 a.m. So it looks like I’ll be pulling an all-nighter before the trip, which I suppose isn’t the end of the world.

What gets me is the capricious pricing. For one flight, Delta gives me a fare of $600, plus $82 in “taxes and fees.” For another Delta flight, with the same departing flights but different returning flights that include an unacceptable 13-hour layover in Atlanta, the base fare is the same, but T&F rise slightly to $86. Four more dollars for the privilege of hanging out for 13 extra hours in a shopping mall with jets in the parking lot? But the kicker is American Airlines, which is currently on every traveler’s shit list for their extortionist bag fees: Wow, I thought, AA has the same itinerary for only $318! What a bargain! Then I looked at their taxes and fees: $372. Yes, T&F is actually more than the fare itself, and the grand total is more than what Delta is offering. Throw in a 15-hour layover with them, and T&F rises to $387. Is there a more seasoned traveler or industry insider who can explain this discrepancy to me?

 

Progress: Week 2/Week 1

I’ve completed Week 2 of the half-marathon schedule and Week 1 of the Hundred Push-Ups. As stated below, these first few weeks of the HM training aren’t anything to shout about, strength-wise; the pride I take in that right now is sticking to a plan that makes me do some sort of workout 6 days a week. But I’m thrilled with the push-ups plan. The first day (of three) I did 28 push-ups, which made me terribly sore for a few days. The second day I did 35, which was pretty difficult, but had no resulting soreness. The third day I managed 41, which wasn’t exactly easy, but was the least difficult yet. I think I may actually succeed in this.

 

Three Ways to Spend $10

Yesterday we took a little road trip about 70 miles up the Hudson Valley for a three-tiered adventure, each leg of which cost us a bargain-basement $10.

First we arrived at the Dia:Beacon, a celebrated contemporary art center on the west bank of the Hudson River. Friends had described the place to us before, but nothing could really prepare us for the sheer scale of this museum. This former box factory has a staggering 300,000 square feet of gallery space, lit almost entirely by natural light from the sawtooth skylights that cover most of the building. The galleries in the spooky basement are lit mainly by the art, which was mostly neon light sculptures and film installations by Bruce Nauman. We wandered through the building for a few hours, awed equally by the art (my favorites were the galleries devoted to Agnes Martin and Sol Lewitt; Will was having fun with Richard Serra and Michael Heizer) and the unbelievable sweep of open space. Unfortunately, photography isn’t allowed there, and there seems to be a dearth of photos on the gallery’s Web site. So you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Next we headed back across the river and about ten miles south to the Storm King Art Center, which again bowled us over with its scale. This unusual museum is actually a 500-acre sculpture park (for my local folks, that’s bigger than Prospect Park, to give you an idea) with enormous sculptures that would certainly never fit inside any building and would really be out of scale in most traditional sculpture gardens. See, for example, Mark di Suvero’s Pyramidian:

Those are full-grown (20- to 30-foot) trees to the left of this piece. I was absolutely transfixed and spent most of my time there hanging out at the base of this sculpture. Click on the photo for the full slideshow. This place was really amazing.

Following that, we headed back up to Beacon to watch the Hudson Valley Renegades get a thorough pounding from the Staten Island Yankees (click on picture for full photoset).

Despite the home team’s poor showing, the game was attended by a record 5,111 fans, about 5,000 of whom seemed to be small children. There were goofy little contests and give-aways between each inning, silly sound effects spilled from the loudspeakers every few seconds, and many people were waving stuffed raccoons in the air (the mascot is Rascal the Raccoon). It was a fun, small-town night out–many people seemed to know each other, kids were having fun, and nobody seemed to mind very much that their team was getting schooled.

So for a total of $30 each in admission fees, we managed a solid eight hours of entertainment and new experiences. It pays to get out of the city every now and then.

 

Mmm, slush…

There’s a new blog in the Geode publishing empire: Slush City, devoted to reviews of cast-off freebies of the magazine world. Mostly it’s going to be Will’s views on music, but I’ve been invited to contribute occasional reviews of my own, which might include assessments of beauty products, books, and liquor in addition to music.

 

Adaptations

One of these days, I might make a recipe straight from what is on the page in front of me, but I just can’t help tweaking the instructions, ingredients, and proportions (which is why I have so little interest in baking). Anyhow, I found this recipe for white bean dip on the New York Times cooking blog and thought it looked good; we’re having a guest over for pre-dinner cocktails later, so I figured I’d make this to go along with the requisite cheese and crackers (and smoked salmon and grapes and cherries). My version is below, with comments on how it deviates from the original, which I’m sure is also very good:

1 can cannelini beans, drained and rinsed (scant 2 cups)
zest of 2 lemons
1 to 2 garlic scapes, minced (original calls for 1 to 3 raw garlic cloves, but that seems like it might be too strong; plus, I had the scapes on hand, so figured the more delicate flavor would work better here; if you can’t find scapes, I think chives would work great)
1 large sprig of mint (original calls for minced fresh rosemary; I didn’t have any on hand, but have a potted mint that is overflowing its container)
a few tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (original calls for 1/4 cup plus a tbsp, which sounded heavy to me)
juice of 1 lemon (not in original; to supply moistness and flavor from oil I cut from the recipe)
salt and pepper

To assemble: throw it all in a food processor and whizz it around until it’s smooth; alternatively, you could just mush it all together with a fork for a more rustic texture. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.

 

Progress

On the half-marathon front, I’ve done everything Week 1 has told me to do. Actually, unless scheduling or weather really conspire against me, I think this plan will be easy until about Week 7 or 8, when the training runs start pushing beyond what I can already do at this point. I won’t even push into a double-digit run (which I’ve never managed before) until Week 11. But the consistency of exercise is what will really help me, I think. I tend to be all over the map, sometimes working out five days a week, sometimes only two. With this, I’ll be running five days and strength-training at least two days a week for the full twelve weeks.

I also did my first day of the push-ups plan, which will be very easy to stick to, since the “workouts” only take about 5 minutes. Day 1 for Level 2 weaklings like yours truly comprises five sets of push-ups with 60 seconds of resting in between. The sets go 7, 7, 5, 4, 5. So I just did 28 push-ups! And I can tell already that I’ll have some soreness tomorrow. The plan is for only three days a week to allow for recovery. Thanks, guys.