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.