Friday Funny 1161: Fart Facts

Here are 24 facts about your bottom:

p.s. Here are 2 funny videos for your viewing enjoyment as well. First, did you hear about the "heckler" who said he could sink a put that Rory McIlroy couldn't make during a practice round at the Ryder Cup? It's pretty awesome. (And that event is just on the other side of the Metro!) And second, here's Michael Phelps racing "The Ellen Show's" producer Andy. Amazing. My flip turns look much like Andy's.

Lots more funny stuff posted all week long on steveinaspeedo.tumblr.com. Happy weekend!

Read more...

Friday Funny 1160: I Do What I Want

You can't tell these people what to do:

This one makes me a little upset.

More funny things on steveinaspeedo.tumblr.com.

Read more...

Friday Funny 1159: Tweets Before and After the Debate

More funny things posted all day long on steveinaspeedo.tumblr.com.

Read more...

Three Weeks of Speed Work

My first "speed test" that I don't count as speed work came on Sunday, September 4th, when I ran 1.5 miles a bit faster in the middle of a 5 mile run.

My first REAL speed work since March was 10 days later: Wednesday, September 14. I ran under 5 miles total, but the middle 3 were done a bit faster. I didn't kill myself pushing SO hard to the finish, but I ran hard enough throughout that I needed to walk for nearly 2 minutes after the 3 hard miles to catch my breath. I had a decent little descend over those 3 miles as I ran 6:15, 6:11, and 6:00 for a total of 18:26 (6:08.7 pace).

My second real speed workout came a week later: Wednesday, September 21. I ran over 5 miles that morning, and I wanted to really build to some speed for that workout. I had 2 thoughts pre-run that foreshadowed the workout: first, I told myself I didn't need to perfectly descend each HALF mile (as my Garmin takes my half mile splits), but should be able to descend each MILE. And secondly, to give a sense of where I wanted to start this workout and how much time I wanted to drop, I told myself I hoped to run something like 6:30, 6:10, and 5:50.

Well, I nailed both of those thoughts. First, I had perfect descending half mile splits: 3:19, 3:15, 3:06, 3:04, 2:56, 2:55 = 18:37.63, which was 6:12.54 pace. (That was slower than the week before overall, but the goal was to get faster at the end of this run, not "suffer" the entire way through like the week before.) And second, my mile splits were 6:34, 6:11, and 5:51 - not far off my intended times.

My third speed workout in 3 weeks came earlier this morning: 2x2 mile intervals. I first did 2 mile intervals with Coach Jen 6 years ago as she was training me for a few weeks to my only sub-60 10 mile at the 2010 TC 10 Mile. It didn't take much for me to fall in love with 2 mile intervals. Here's what I like about them:

- There's only 2. Your either running your first or last interval. It's easy to gauge how much you should "have left in the tank."

- They're not as fast (and therefore not as taxing) on your body, but they're still a "speed" workout. 800s are killer for me. 1600s are good "fast" speed sessions. But 2 mile intervals are somewhere around 10K race pace, which isn't going to make my body explode. (In fact, I've even done 2 mile intervals while pushing a sleeping child in the stroller before. Three or 4 times.)

- You don't need a track. I really like to run my 800s or 1600s on a track (for the sake of consistency), but I've never done 2 mile intervals on a track. I just go back-and-forth along the River somewhere in Minneapolis or St. Paul.

Because I don't have a ton of miles on my legs currently, I couldn't do this 2 mile workout how I normally do it, which is with a 2 mile warm up and 2 mile cool down. That's usually a great way for me to hit 8 miles in a day, but right now, my "normal" runs have been around 5-5.5 miles, and my "long" runs are just a mile farther. So I planned on just having a 0.75 mile WU and CD to make it a 5.5 mile workout total.

I wasn't concerned AT ALL with keeping my splits consistent or descending or anything like that. I just wanted to run hard for 2 miles, take a 3 minute break, and then do it again. My half mile splits were:

- 3:07, 3:03, 3:02, 3:07 = 12:20.15 (6:10.08 pace)
- 3:04, 3:12, 3:05, 3:05 = 12:29.33 (6:14.67 pace)

It's 2.5 weeks to my first race since March (the 15K relay at Fort Snelling where each runner runs a 5K ), and this was my last "long, hard" workout. I'll do some shorter speed next week (10 days pre-race) just to keep the legs snappy, and then see what I can do down on Pike Island for the race!

p.s. I'm trying to do a bit of speed work NOT to get "super fast," but to make sure my legs survive racing. When I came up injured at the end of March, I'd had a winter of good miles on my legs (including a half marathon and a 25K), but then I had 2 shorter back-to-back race weekends (a 4-mile and a 5-mile). Maybe it was doing that hard fast racing that injured me. We still don't know. So now in my mind, speed work is less about making me fast, and more about making me survive racing.

Read more...

6 Month Injury Update

I posted this big injury update on Facebook last week. I figured it'd be good to share here too:

I hope to do my 3rd speed workout in 3 weeks shortly. Back with an update about that (and about last week's PERFECT speed workout) shortly.

Read more...

Run Study

I had an interesting experience earlier this summer. I responded to a quick survey that Runner's World put out regarding a "run study" in the Minneapolis area. If picked to be part of this study, I'd have to spend an hour or 2 talking with some marketing people about "running stuff," and I would get a free pair of running shoes for my time.

Well, 2 weeks later, I learned I was picked to be one of the participants. I showed up at a fancy south metro hotel:

I EXPECTED maybe 1-2 dozen participants, and maybe 3-6 people asking questions.

But in REALITY, it was 5 participants being asked questions by 13 people. Whoa. A little intimidating at first.

There was a runner who started running to lose weight and now does marathons, a back-of-the-pack runner who runs for fun and fitness, a new Mom who runs for sanity (BEEN THERE), and a runner who considered himself more of a cyclist (he was the only other guy there with me).

This company (who I don't want mention, but they do lots of "outdoors" stuff including running and trail running shoes) flew in a lot of their marketing team from the western US and from France. So there were lots of sexy accents. They had a ton of random questions that were mainly first about how we perceived their brand, and then lots of questions about what sort of things we look for in different gear (like running shoes, technical shirts, running shorts, etc). And even questions like who we talk to or listen to for gear advice. It was all quite interesting (not what WE were saying, but looking at the questions THEY were asking and how that could help them).

Here's a pic as the run study wrapped up:

The only other guy was just to my right, and the 3 women were at the end of the
table with me to my left. We were stared down by a TABLE full of marking people!

After they met with us, they were headed to the east coast to host a similar focus group before they all went back home. Interesting time!

Back with some speed work updates next week.

Read more...

Friday Funny 1158: Fake Trivia

This Reddit user has been pulling an awesome prank:

More funny things posted 10x each day on steveinaspeedo.tumblr.com. HAPPY WEEKEND!!

Read more...

Friday Funny 1157: Horrible Tattoos

These are amazingly horrible:

More funny things on steveinaspeedo.tumblr.com.

Read more...

Friday Funny 1156: Running With the iPhone 7

More funny reactions to the iPhone 7:

And if you haven't seen it, here's Conan O'Brien's spoof of Apple's old iPod commercials with the new AirPods for the iPhone 7:


Direct link: https://youtu.be/z_wImaGRkNY

More funny things posted 10x a day on steveinaspeedo.tumblr.com.

Read more...