No pain no gain?

I have read in different articles about Alan Webb and Meb Keflezighi both using post-workout ice baths for recovery. I've got a left-leg problem from the hip to the calf that just won't go away, but I'm not willing to take time off -- not yet, anyway -- with Boston now seven weeks out. After today's long run I tried the cold tap in the bathtub (no ice, though) for ten minutes. My goodness did that hurt. And it also seems to have helped. Of course, maybe it's the four generic Advil.

Student Faculty Basketball

Today is the 5th annual student-faculty basketball game. The first three games were on the floor of the United Center about an hour before a Bulls game. Then the Bulls got greedy and started requiring too high a guarantee for both # of tickets and ticket. The game was then switched to the Loyola basketball arena on campus, fittingly called the Gentile Center. Its 2-2 with the last faculty victory coming on a thrilling and utterly random three pointer I made a couple of years ago.

There are three problems with the continuing viability of the faculty team. First, we keep getting older and the students on average do not. Second, a shockingly large number of students in law student seem to played college ball, other varsity sports and/or elite high school ball. The faculty does have a visitor from practice who played college ball at Princeton at the beginning of time but the students have players from Loyola, Grinell, Princeton and Wake Forest from the recent past. Finally, you can't teach height and I have been singularly unsuccessful in convincing my colleagues to recruit for both publication and above average height.

We do have going for us the intimidation factor, the fact that most students have had no time play for over a year, our ability to threaten dire academic consequences, a dean referee who cheats outrageously for us, and the daughter of a different dean who is the starting point guard for the Loyola women's team. Plus for the first time my daughter will be joining me in the back court a mere three weeks since her season as a starter for her high schools freshman team.

The sweet part is that the students mostly just want to hang out with us and go out for a beer afterwards.

Do you guys have anything similar? And if you are either tall or good can you join us next year?

2 a Days

Today was one of my few two a day workouts. This morning was a quick pleasant 5 miler along the Lakefront and back through the zoo. This afternoon was a 40 minute complementary pilates session at my new gym. Interesting challenging core work but doesn't make you sweat!

The Old Man of Running

In response to Spencer's post regarding a book list, I suggested The Old Man and the Sea. You probably don't need me to remind you, but "He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish." When I first, second and third read the book I enjoyed the story and Hemingway's pathbreaking writing style. Starting maybe with read number four I began to appreciate the old man as a stoic ideal. I need to read it again for the lesson of the old man's remaining faithful to a process that was wisely implemented but when followed takes him over peaks (once catching "big ones every day for three weeks") and through valleys (once he "went eighty-seven days without fish"). What's remarkable about the old man is that he is failing but he is not a failure.

The old man woke every day in the dark. He loaded his gear in the boat. He drank coffee from condensed milk cans. Even after 84 days "[h]is hope and his confidence had never gone. But now they were freshening as when the breeze rises." When he was fishing, he kept his lines "straighter than anyone did, so that at each level in the darkness of the stream there would be a bait waiting exactly where he wished it to be for any fish that swam there."

The old man would make a great runner. A change of props and he's not launching a skiff into the Gulf Stream. He's following a trail deep into the woods or toeing the line at a race. After 84 days this one might be his, or it might not. But although his legs are weary "his eyes . . . [a]re the same color as the sea and [a]re cheerful and undefeated."

Strassburg Sock

Okay, so I finally broke down and ordered a "Strassburg Sock" as a remedy for my chronic heel pain.  So, aside from the fact that it cost me about half an hour of sleep, and is a bit uncomfortable, the darned thing might actually work.  After one night, I had a run where, for the first time in months, I felt like myself.  I also bought new shoes, so causation is not proven, but I'm hopeful . . .

Michael Collins

Here's a fun article about a runner who returned to the sport to avoid muggings! You big-city bloggers may be able to relate to this.

What is the Aquatic Version of "The Trial of Miles"?

Cassidy talks about the trial of miles throughout both of Parker's classic running novels. What is the water equivalent? This thought occupied me for most of my mile swim/run in the pool yesterday (actually one half mile of each). That and the prince song "Purple Rain" which I couldn't get out of my head.

The best I could come up was "The Map of Laps" or "The School of Pools". I hope you can do better. Hoping to teach a decent class and then do an outdoor run before the sleet and freezing rain begins later tonight. Back to the trial of miles.