i suppose i could have run today but pizza, beer, and spicy sounded way too good. i got 90 miles the last 8 days while battling nagging injuries, so a day off isnt a bad idea.

epic run, epic taint chafe

24 miles. 3:20. the bad-asses involved were me, greg, jonny, and bentley. i dont always enjoy running in rhody, but this run was awesome. we were on single track trails almost the whole time. its hard to find good trails down here, so theres a good chance we just ran all of them in one shot. everything about this run was awesome. i didnt have any problems with my feet, and my energy levels were good, despite only getting three hours of sleep (all night i had been looking at a clock that was two hours slow. weird, i know). i avoided bonking even though i had trouble getting a lot of food down for breakfast and unexpectedly found no gatorade in the fridge. also, we ran over some cool rock formations that i never knew existed. definitely awesome. ok, so i guess there was one thing that wasnt awesome. about an hour into the run, i started to chafe, which is never fun. some people chafe under their arms. others on the inner thighs, and theres always the aesthetically pleasing nipple chafe. i had none of the above. i had the ever-popular (or not) taint chafe (some say grundle). i didnt want to think about it, so i tried to focus on my footwork. that helped at first, but the burning kept getting worse. i was pulling and tugging on my clothing the rest of the way, trying to get slightly less uncomfortable. i was also trying not to complain about it alot. by the end of the run, it burned so bad i couldnt go more than two minutes without thinking about it. somehow, it didnt ruin the run for me. i was so happy to be done because it meant the worst of the burning was over. i was wrong about that. i like really hot showers, so i was suffering pretty bad. in spite of that, i would do this run again, but not without putting sport shield down there first. since im now on the subject, it reminds of when we were at a race and a friend asked if anyone had some sport shield he could borrow. i let him use mine, and he started using it on the standard chafe spots. about halfway through he asked, 'you dont mind?'. i said 'its no prob, i only use it on my balls anyway." he froze. 'nah, im messin with ya', i said. but after today, there will be no joke about it. i will be so lubed up down there it will look like im ready to do something other than run. (yes i went there. you will too if you want to get the joke.) 77 miles this week. church.

8 miles. 56:30.

lets not rock around the xmas tree

its started already. i love christmas, but there is one aspect of the holiday that we could totally throw out the window and i wouldnt be the least bit sad. im talking about the extreme overplaying of christmas music. we're not even in the same month as said holiday and im already at my limit. i was driving for no more than a half an hour today and i heard five of these friggin vomit inducing eardrum puncturing horror shows. this problem is not limited to otherwise unknown artists (ex. the chick who sang rockin around the christmas tree. come on, theres nothing rockin about that song. and maybe she was famous in 1950, but i dont know who the hell she is). some of the most famous and successful artists have fallen victim to the horror. bruce springteen reminded us who was comin to town (not the worst thing ive heard, but who really wants to hear that when they could listen to born in the usa? easy call, think about it). the worst ever comes from a member of arguably the most famous and influential band of all time. i am not a fan of this band but i respect their influence on the evloution of music. the respect, however, does not include this song. really, paul? that is shit! youre a gd beatle! what is up with that music? you could have done so much better. i know it was 1979, so the synthesizer may have seemed slightly ahead of its time, but it sounds like it should have been in a video game (clearly, nintendo decided it wasnt good enough for super mario bros). why is it that singers who consistenly give us quality songs for their entire careers think its acceptable to produce absolute garbage when it comes to christmas music? and why is it that everyone but me chooses to accept these half-ass efforts? (i take that back. half-ass is far too much credit.) how can so many people not see through this? these songs are crap, and no one cares. you might be asking yourself, is this a-hole the biggest grinch in the world? of course not, but coincidentally, one of only four christmas songs that i like is all about that awesome little green jerk. in no particular order, here are the only christmas songs that i ever want to hear.
-youre a mean one, mr grinch
-i wont be home for christmas
-fairytale of new york
-happy holidays, you bastard
(also, i can occasionally tolerate songs by mariah carey and taylor swift.)

ok, deep breath. now that im fully hydrated with haterade, i think its time to run off some frustration. but if i hear silent night coming from an open car window, there might be a rock flying back through that same open window.

13 miles. 1:32. no terrible music coming from passing cars. no broken windows.

i have issues

11 miles. 1:11. there was supposed to be a 5 mile race in there, but considering the time i ran, i can hardly consider it a race. i had to change my usual goals due to my disaster at lil rhody a few days ago. at that race i felt terrible, and didnt keep trying to push it. i knew my time was going to suck so i shut it down early and finished comfortably, 4 minutes slower than last year. racing like that isnt going to get me back to where i was last year. today the goals were to (1)feel good and to (2)stay tough. i didnt want to worry about time, because then it would get the negative thoughts going. that never helps if you want to run fast. my legs didnt feel that great (again), so goal 1 was not going to happen. i managed to put that out of my head for most of the race, and i did a pretty good job of keeping the positive thoughts going. i kept pushing despite seeing splits on my watch that should have felt kind of easy. i got a little soft the last minute when i should have been trying to kick, but i met goal 2 about 90% anyway. im not pleased but with the race, but at least i dont have a totally horrible feeling about how it went (even though last year i ran 28:14 and this year i ran 30:03). i dont feel even close to being ready for indoor, but thats another problem for another day. its time to start thinking about stuffing, mashed potatoes, and chromium replacement.

8 miles. 59 min. the feet didnt feel too bad. i should be able to race tomorrow. the plan is to keep the thoughts positive, even if i feel like a ds80. last week i wasnt able to do that, and it made me feel even worse, which of course made me run even slower. i cant let myself get like that this time.

feet hurt a ton. not good. got some new trainers.
we'll see if it helps.

am 5 miles. pm 8 miles. no advil. both feet hurt. a lot.

race report

imagine running fast. i didnt.

taking a break from taking advil

i decided to take it easy the last few days in the hopes that a nagging injury will go away. for the last month ive had annoying plantar fascitis. here is a brief summary of how each day of that month went: wake up, get the feeling like im stepping on a rock barefoot, limp around at work til about noon, eat lunch, take advil, start my run two hours later, feel discomfort in my foot, finish the run anyway, repeat the next morning. yes that does mean ive been taking advil every day. if i didnt, i wouldnt have been able to run. i was also icing and rolling a tennis ball under my foot. doing all that made it so i could keep training, but i knew i would have to rest it at some point. hopefully, the time off from running will heal my foot. hopefully, the time off from advil will delay the eating away of the lining of my digestive system (or whatever the hell happens as a result of long term advil snacking. everyone tells me a different crappy result. if you feel compelled to offer your medical advice that i will scoff at and ignore, be my guest. yes, i am aware that i am a richard). the time off should also give me fresh legs for the race tomorrow. of course, racing means i will be back on the sauce. advil. well, i made it three days without it. waxicula. i mean whatever.

today was an ok day (implied nick cash)

dark already. this t9 rivals.

nick cash nation !!!!

if you were at dillos tonight, you know whats up.
if not, that sux.

fried from yesterday. taking a 0.

railbed tempo 56:54 (about 9.5)  11 miles total  1:07

today we went to a race in leominster, mass because 'someone' (guilty party will remain anonynous) said there was a fast 5 miler. that was not the case. instead, what we ran was harder than the nuby lake summer sizzler 5 miler. ferenc (previously anonymous guilty party), hammett and goup had good races. i did not. i couldnt get my legs to move. im not sure why. thats all i have to say about that.

10 miles  1:10

10 miles  1:11   that porcupine was in the same spot as yesterday. watching, waiting, roid raging. i dont like him. i think he is mean.

porcupines on roids

we had a solid 5 man wolfpack today, and also a 5 wolf wolfpack. one of the wolves bit a porcupine and was full of quills. this porcupine was a total richard. it stood next to a tree to watch the quills get pulled out. the thing looked pissed, but it didnt walk away. it just glared at us. it was angry, possibly from steroids. somehow, everyone made it back alive. 9 miles. 55 minutes.

worked late. took a 0. daylight savings sucks.

potential for disaster

6 miles.  10x200.  34 sec.  i didnt really want to do a workout the day after a tempo run so i made it an easy one. i had to do this today since i cant go to the workout tomorrow cuz i have a class after school til 415. im not thrilled about it but i have a long way to go on getting all of my professional development hours in. if i didnt do it and lost my teaching certification that would be a total disaster. speaking of total disasters, i found myself in a situation today which had the potential to be arguably the worst kind of disaster known to man. no i am not talking about the tsunami, the tornado, earthquake, california wildfire, bla bla, etc. i am of course speaking of the 'public embarrasment disaster'. man, thats bad. it doesnt get much worse than that. allow me to set the scene. 630 pm, multi purpose room above the gym at the college, professional development class on the functional training of athletes. at that time i was wondering what you might be wondering now- what the eff is that? well it meant that for the duration of the class, we would be learning and doing dynamic stretches, warm up movements and core exercises. that was not the real problem though. the class itself would have been really fun (implied nick cash) except for one little (big) issue. now im wondering if youre wondering when i am going to get to the gd point. ok so about halfway into the class we needed to get a partner so we could share the equipment. a college student asked me if i needed a partner. she was probly 19 or 20 and good looking. seeing as how im not a total dumbass, i said sure. about 0.13 seconds later i felt a horrible rumbling inside my stomach. nooooo!!! for dinner i ate burritos with 3 different kinds of beans. that was a mistake. and of course we were starting the core exercises, which means all you do is tighten every muscle in your stomach, back, and ass in order to complete the movements. i was not excited about this due to the fact that i was already using all my stomach, back, and ass muscles to hold in gallons of nasty bean gas that wanted out BAD. i should point out that this room had a terrible echo, and mirrors all the way around, so there would be no way to attempt a test fart. no hiding behind a big person in the hopes people will just assume it was him. and no hope of escape. i was clenching everything as we did about 5 plank variations, a few squat variations, crunches, and balance ball exercises. i almost lost everything when i was doing a plank with my feet on the balance ball. i held it in so bad, the resulting involuntary shiver was so strong it almost shook me off the ball. at this point the pressure was so strong in my stomach and the pain was so bad i decided it would be worth the embarrassment just to get rid of the pressure. i was within seconds of pulling the trigger when the instructor decided to end the class. i got out of there quick. the final stats were as follows: shooting stomach pains-3, changes in sitting position-5, invlountary shivers-14. i got to my car (it took 39 sec to get there, so i estimate it was about a 400 away), started driving, did my best dale doback, and cursed the slow rate in which the power windows went down. thats all i have to say about that.

10 miles  1:02   that was tough

the big guy runs fast

me and big dave ran lil rhody in 61. dude pr'd by 4 min.

10 miles  1:10

16 x 200. 200 jog. averaged 34. easy workout. 6 mile total.

7 miles. ton of foot pain. advil is weak. not happy about it.

Hater-Ade is not officially recognized as a healthy sports drink substitute

track workout...

...but first...

...i will now address the minions (err...followers) who have clearly consumed more than their fill of the diabolical substance pictured below.



ok ive had my fun. i fully expected a couple of nasty comments, and i got them, welcomed them in fact, (i laughed, which caused me to almost micturate my pants while reading), then strongly considered doing nothing about it, but thought better of it. so i guess ill put the workout times up there. the hater-ade hammetts no longer need to continue their alternative hydration methods. please resume drinking gatorade like the rest of us. well at least until tomorrow.


warm up
4/8/12/12/8/8/4      
80/238/357/357/235/229/68
cool down
11 mile total

i was supposed to go another lap on the 2nd 12 and the 2nd 8. i wanted to finish them but i could feel the signs of rigging coming quick so i stopped. with a large group of friends watching, theres no need to suffer thru what would have been at least 200m of ambulatory paralysis, the kind of rig that is so loud that everyone wishes they had those giant headphone earmuffs like the guys that hold the orange lite-up sticks on the airport runways, but they cant get them because we're not at an airport, we're at a high school track and no one would ever be carrying any of those things with them at a track, so all anyone can do is jam their fingers into their ears until they feel the wetness of their brain and either watch in horror or turn away in disgust as their friend staggers down the final straight looking not so much like a runner but more like one of the zombies from shaun of the dead. anyway, that type of disaster doesnt help you get faster and its just about the worst thing you could make your friends have to see. at least in public. if you can think of anything worse, by all means dont hold back. this could get interesting. also i must say congrats to you on having read the world's longest non run-on sentence. church.

7 miles   51:00   i did not feel good today. it might have something to do with the sinus infection/headache which was attempting to push my eyes out thru my forehead. that was an all day experience for me. very exciting.

10 miles  1:13