DC Again

On the train to DC, will be staying in Bethesday.  Any of the DC folks interested in a gentle early run tomorrow morning?

Wildlife

On today's 10-miler:

Running through the golf course just north of Bethesda on the Capital Crescent trail, I encountered a gopher.  Cue Caddyshack.

Then I encountered a buzzard feasting on something smelly.  Doggone bird was so bold it just ate while I ran by.  I almost thought it looked at me funny.

Who says you need to be in the wilderness to enjoy wildlife encounters while running?

Wimbledon, World Cup, and Tour de France

I'm in heaven.

And a tip of the hat to Jens Voight, king of the mountains (at least for a day) at age 42 and his last Tour.  He rides with such joy.

Great but chaotic sprint at the end.  Not hating on Marc Cavendish who took a nasty spill in front of the home crowd but great moves by Marcel Kittel to avoid the crash and don the first yellow jersey of the tour.  Second stage will be a killer ride from York to Sheffield with 9 separate climbs. This tour starts with a bang, not a whimper and hasn't even gotten to France yet.  Estimates of 800,000 fans on day one's route.  Wonder how many a stage in the US would get?

Last Couple of Runs

Thanks to Max who posted for me when I was abroad and couldn't sign into the site.

Had a birthday on my last day in Dublin and celebrated by going out for a morning run in the opposite direction away from Phoenix Park.  This time I head east along the Liffey and then along the curving East Wall Road (the actual east wall of the Port so about a mile without crossing a street).  Headed into East Point which is both a high tech office park and a lovely gravel path by a lake.  That path actually dead ended so I backtracked and headed around Fairview Park and down The Strand back to the River and home.  About 65 minutes and 7 miles or so.  Then spent the day touring the old jail and its sad story of the 1916 uprising and the civil war which followed home rule.  You've actually seen the panoptican like part of the newer jail in the films Michael Collins and In the Name of the Father.  Then off to the Guinness Tour, a free pint, and a nap.  Dinner at The Winding Stair which I highly recommend.

Home the next day which began at 4 AM Dublin time and ended by falling asleep at 8 PM Chicago time (2 AM Dublin).

Thought a long run was in order both for training purposes and to reset my body clock.  Did a slow but negative split 11 to the edge of the museum campus and back.  I am so out of alignment from planes, trains, and schlepping luggage that I could actually feel the body parts fighting each other rather than working together.  Hopefully my adjustment tomorrow morning (love my chiro for her weekend hours) will take care of that.  Otherwise enjoyed my first run in my NB 980s.  I plan to continue training in those but racing in the Saucony Kinvara 4s. 

Happy to be home but not looking forward to the usual heat and humidity of training in the Chicago summer.

Rethinking Posner rethinking Posner

from an interview with Judge Posner on Brian Leiter's blog:

"I've changed my views a lot over the years. I'm much less reactionary than I used to be. I was opposed to homosexual marriage in my book Sex and Reason, published in 1992, which was still the dark ages regarding public opinion of homosexuality. Public opinion changed radically in the years since. My views have changed about a lot of things. I've become much more concerned with long prison sentences; softer on drugs; more concerned with consumer protection, the environment and economic inequality; less trustful of purely economic analysis—the last partly because of the crash of 2008 and the ensuing economic downturn. That shook some of my faith in economic analysis. And developments in psychology have required qualification of the "rational choice" model of economic behavior. So my views have changed a lot. You don't want a judge who takes a position and feels committed to it because he thinks it's terrible to change one's mind."


Note that he doesn't directly mention antitrust.

July 4 5K

Ran my first race since December this a.m. -- the Great Falls 5K in Great Falls Park on the Virginia side -- on the most pleasant July 4 morning that I can remember in 15 years living in DC.  July 4 races always seem to be small local affairs and this was no different.  We ran two laps of towpath-like dirt trail, starting and finishing on a lawn near the third falls overlook.

The start-line scrum was populated with single-digit-age kids sprinting until their lungs gave out; a number of speedy high-school cross-country types, and the usual population of 5-10 local hard-men and -women jockeying for that shot at the occasional race win.

Things spread out quickly; in lap 2 I passed two quick young-uns, one of whom held on to give chase in the finishing chute, but I couldn't close on the guy wearing triathlon gear.  (Why do people wear triathlon suits when running, anyway?)  It appears I squeaked into the top 10.  19:11-ish.  And loads of fun.

One (or two) steps back

After a short but pleasant ride on my road bike from the Ferry to my parents' house, I got a text from V__ saying, "We've gone to the beach come meet us."  Not wanting to show up in bike shoes and spandex, I changed into shorts and beach shoes. Then I went to the garage, and dug out my brother's mountain/city/beach bike.  I had to knock off the cobwebs, pump up the tires and raise the seat, but everything seemed in order and I was in a bit of a rush.  Off I went.  About 1.5 miles from the house there's a short steep hill into an intersection.  Idiot me, I took it like I was on the road bike.  There were a couple of cars waiting to turn into the intersection, so I lightly touched the brakes.  Oops!! Front wheel locked, and, with no toe clips, before I could release the brakes, I was over the handle bars and flying.  I've fallen while riding before, but usually it's a skid on a wet road, or a plop after a failure to clip out at a stop sign.  Forward falls are a different animal.  Suddenly you are airborne, with plenty of time to consider what's going on ("Oh crap this is not good"), and what is going to happen in a bit ("This is going to hurt.  I hope I don't die.")?   It could have been worse.  I rolled a bit -- knee to elbow to shoulder to head, as I remember it (accurately judging from the abrasions).  Popped up, picked up the bike, and got over to the side of the road to take stock -- not even an "are you ok?" from the motorists, by the way.

So much for the beach.  I decided to go home to do triage.  Short inventory, a scary bruise/road rash just above my right knee, and a similar nasty just below my right elbow, a bit of skin rubbed off on the shoulder, and (big takeaway here) noticeable compression to the right side of the helmet.  I took an ice bath to stop the swelling in my knee and elbow, and then iced all evening.  The swelling above the knee and below the elbow was pretty impressive, but in neither case did it feel like a muscle or tendon bruise.  I'm still a bit nervous about how long it's going to take to resolve, but morning after, it seems to be calming down, and so am I.

Anyway, the big lessons here, are: (1) if the bike has cobwebs, take it easy for the first few miles until you've felt it out; (2) wear a helmet!! This is the second time I've been very glad I was wearing a helmet. The last time was about 20 years ago, which qualifies a header as a long tail event. I may miss my long run this weekend (maybe not), but I lived to tell the tale . . .