A Long Week

First things first:

Ran 3.4 miles in 25 mins on Tuesday, on the treadmill with B. Started at 8:00/mi, and held that for 15 mins, then upped it to 7:30 for 8 mins, then ran the last 90 seconds at 6:39. So that was good -- I haven't tried to run that fast for that kind of distance before, and while I was puffing by the end, I wasn't completely shot.

Yesterday B and I met at the track behind my house at dusk, and ran about 4 miles, doing interval work -- warm up for 2400, something he calls "curves and straightaways" for 800, then 4x600 -- my times were 1:47, 2:05, 2:02, and 2:07 -- with ~50 seconds rest (I was hate hate hating life after 1 and 3, when I was kicking it hard at the end), and cool down for 1600. Short of it is, I am getting fast enough to run with B outside, for 25 mins or so, which was a problem last year when training.

Today, ran an easy 25 mins on 8.30; 3.2 mi. Plan was to do a long run tomorrow, but I forgot that J has the day of from school, so may have to figure something else out there.

B and I were talking about Bloody-mindedness; I accuse him of it regularly, he says "you shoulda seen me when." What I kind of mean is that he knows what pace he has been able to hold in the past, and he Will Hold That Pace, regardless of the price he pays later. I mean, he's been out of training for 3 months, he shouldn't be able to run that fast -- but not only can he, he makes it look easy - because he KNOWS that he can. I am still figuring out what kind of pace I can hold, over what distance. When I've been running for 20 years like B, perhaps I will have that same kind of intuition.

In Other News. This last weekend was a local diplomacy tournament, which I helped run. It was a well run event, with 50+ individual players who travelled from all over America (and one Canadian). Because of some earlier drama (which I will spare you) the first place prize was not awarded; I was at the center of that drama, and all I will say for the record is that sometimes doing the right thing feels really good.

At the event were several of the best people I know - people I really treasure and cherish in my life -- and the only downside to that is that several of them don't get along with each other. The event ended badly when two people went at it hammer and tongs; although most people had gone home allready, it was pretty embarrassing. For the moment I am keeping the situation at arms length and hoping that tempers will cool, good sense prevail - but despite some early rallies it looks like the stock of that option is going into the tank.

In Still Other News, I am working on a paper about the Castles for a conference, and, while looking through some images I scanned while doing research at the Billy Rose collection of the NYPL, I found the perfect one for my topic. So --I hope to have that knocked out today, and with some finesse, it should find itself into my dissertation as well.