My Apology

First off, I need to address the elephant in the room: I apologize for the lack of useful running content in last weeks blog post. Reaching a "new low", while saddening, was actually an impressive feat, considering there have been posts in the past with a talking bacon strip and a video of a song named "Wrong Hole"...in the same post! Seriously, just watch the embedded videos (discretely) for our previous, epic, low.

Duerr, I have contacted our finance department and they will be refunding your prorated membership fee for last week so that you can, hopefully, continue to get full value from your TRY membership.

Now for this weeks post:
NEXT week is the Chase Corporate Challenge at the park so there will be no traditional TRY meetup on June 7th. But we have a tradition of meeting up a little early, getting an optional jog in, and then going out on the course about 1/4 to 1/2 a mile and cheering on any and everyone we can see go by that we know that are doing the race. So, non-racers, get in touch with me if you would like to be a part of that effort.

This week - mid 70s and sunny, so should be a perfect night. Come on out and enjoy a slight break from this weekends heat wave.

This coming Saturday is the 20th annual Paige's Butterfly Run. We have one centipede division team running this year and hopefully a couple individual race runners. I'll be in touch with meet-up plans, but you can plan for a full morning: An early morning meet-up, running the race, kids caterpillar crawl, open walk 3k? event, award ceremony, and then a quick group pass through the Taste of Syracuse before it gets super busy.

While I really enjoy the event and hopefully everyone else does as well, I want to make sure people think about it a bit deeper this year on the 20th running of the race... Paige would have turned 30 this year. And with our very own Escalade having turned 30 just a few months ago it is very easy to guess at what Paige might be doing if she was around...celebrating a dating anniversary with her fiance, planning a wedding location and working up a guest list, and figuring out future living arrangements... It really is heart crushing if you think about it. Instead of all the fun stuff that most women get to do around the age of 30, there have been 22 empty years since Paige's untimely death. Well, not empty certainly, since her passing inspired this amazing event that has raised a ton of money over the years.

For all you TRYers that take part in Paige's this Saturday, please take some time to appreciate that our special connection with the event is a SPECIAL thing. Sure, the centipede thing gets a bit silly at times and we certainly have fun with it. But the event appreciates and returns that joy and has used us (mostly Malinda and Kelly) many times through fun photos. From being "cover girls" on the Syracuse paper to being the photo of the day for a weekend online, to being used as a whole team of "Band on the Run" in last years Fleet Feet newsletter's mention of the race - TRY has stumbled into a bit of a celebrity entity for this event. And I do not take that honor lightly. So please join me in embracing our role and putting on your best paparazzi smile for a few hours Saturday morning.

Lastly, an over due congratulations to Malinda for completing her first "hymon" two Sundays ago. She took part in the first running of the "Erie Canal Half Marathon" in Utica on the 22nd. Just from the name I can guess that the race was 17% "C" and 83% "anal", but I'll leave it up to Malinda to confirm my in-depth "anal-ysis". She took to the canal run like a mule named Sal would...to the point of finishing 3rd in her age group (assumingly losing to one neighbor and one pal). Congratulations Malinda! (And great job avoiding those low bridges.) Unrelated question: who else had to learn the Erie Canal song while in school? For some reason, that song has always been stuck somewhere in the recesses of my brain.

Pictured - Neighbor, pal, and Sal:




(Yes, we also have a TRYer that whooped a deer AND a trail marathon this past weekend, but I'm saving that story for a full treatment during a future week. So no need for any prima-Donna's to be offended that I missed something.)

I think that is all I have...saving some sillier stuff for next weeks "off" week.

Smile. Make it Memorable.

Finally we have an over 70 degree forecast for this evenings TRY session. Come on out and enjoy a perfect spring day. (With perhaps a touch too much wind.)

Nothing to do with running, but something that is going to have a HUGE impact on our running setting. Several ash trees in the park that our visible from our meet-up spot, or as we walk Angela's TRYangle, or even as you drive out the southern exit have numbers on them and tape around them. I assume that means the trees are planned for cutting down? But slight chance that they are just being monitored at this point or even being given the pesticide treatments mentioned? Here is a slide show article that came out yesterday from syracuse.com on how the county is dealing with the emerald ash borer blight. The pictures under the bark are rather amazing at the damage they can quickly do.

If all the marked trees in the park get taken down, it will a much different looking area. (And would take decades before any trees of significant size could take their place.)

Once again, nothing to do with running, but I stumbled across this interesting take on life. And most of us are alive, so thought it was worth sharing. My family went to "Sesame Place" in southeastern Pennsylvania over the weekend. It is a "mini-Disney" type theme park in that it is much-much smaller, geared towards kids about 10 and under, and easily do-able in a day. It has roaming characters (from sesame street), character dining opportunities, is kept super clean, and has a daily parade...so it sure seems like they are copying or paying homage to the Disney system. (It is actually a Sea World owned and operated park despite having no marine animals in sight.) Anyway, they do a very good job there and I do recommend it for families with young children. (For anyone over 25 and with no children - you may be surprised to learn that Elmo has become the superstar of the crew...definitely gets the Mickey Mouse treatment around those parts.)

An access door ("team members only") happened to be propped open and on the inside was a sign for the "team members" to read as the last thing they see before interacting with the public. It said: "Smile! Be memorable!" I have thought about that for a while and cannot decide if that is a great thing or a terrible thing? From the characters, to the ticket takers, to the popcorn seller, to the poor soul standing there for 8 hours just to turn people away from the ride that is not open yet...they are all supposed to be "on" from the moment they step out that door just so us paying customers can have our best experience possible.

How would your life be different, if for every interaction you had today, you did your best to ensure that it was in the running for the best interaction that OTHER person was going to have all day? What if you were tasked with being memorable to everyone you came across? Constantly?! It seems like it would be VERY draining? But, then again, for those who believe in the "bucket filler" outlook on life, perhaps it would often be reciprocated and you would find yourself with more energy?

It is an interesting thought experiment. Too bad I am too much of a 

 

to ever give it a try. (Someone please do this for a day or two and let me know how it turns out?)

The Ides of May

The forecast is for around 60 and clouds for TRY time.

The results of last weeks informal question about compression led me to this conclusion: we pay a lot to wear compression clothing, so of course we are going to convince ourselves that it works. And as silly of creatures as humans are - that belief itself is enough to be worth the money. 

For this week, I have a mis-mash of links.

First, for people newer to TRY that may wonder about the reasons behind doing interval running, here is yet another article explaining the why's, how's and when's of running intervals. It gets very basic in some of its explanation - so a great read for beginners. For those of you who skip all of my links know that it says to wait until you have a base, warm up first, and my favorite thing to repeat about repeats is that you should run your hard runs harder and your easier runs easier. (Do NOT run every run at the same pace/exertion, Susan! This will be a great test to see if she still reads the blog posts. #suebrokethetry)

I got to that link by starting to read about interval workouts - that is - interval training during non-running workouts. A study (SCIENCE!) came out about a "one minute workout" that showed that doing an interval based bike workout produced very similar results to a much longer bike workout. The key takeaway to me is that when pressed for time, work out smarter, instead of working out longer, and definitely instead of not working out at all. Here is the master article about interval workouts - with a few good links inside - but that points out that interval workouts should not be your only workout. (Keep in mind that I refuse to do ANY workout, but if I did workout, I would definitely do some interval workouts. Maybe?)

If you care only about running or getting in better physical shape, stop here. For those of you who care about random things, well, by all means - continue:

The completely overdone video version of what happens to you body when you don't have sex. Sure, I could list the bullet points for you here and save putting in the link, or you could read most/all of them in the short article...but that would not get them their precious video view...and what would be the fun in that? Let's just say that if you cuddled a Mickey Mouse plush doll as you fell asleep last night instead of cuddling someone else...well, you are missing out on some important health benefits. (Note: I am not signaling out any particular single people with the above example, I just made up an example behavior that a single person might or might not choose to do.)

Lastly, for some color directly in the blog, this humorous video on what a meat eater behaving like a vegetarian would look like. Obviously, way over the top, and completely based on a stereotypical vegetarian...and not like anyone I've ever met. But people like this must exist somewhere, because stereotypes do not get made out of thin air:

(If you can get through the "but none of the cucumber" line without a grin on your face, then you are a better woman than me!)

Run For The Border

No, not that border...did not want to risk running into Diego. I'm heading for a quickation to Canada so will not be around for TRY. The lure of a favorable exchange rate and a Groupon deal was too much for me to pass up.

The forecast looks great and mid spring-like so hopefully that will bring some of the new prospective TRYers out of the woodwork. Please greet them with open arms - but keep it tasteful.

May tends to be a little lax on the group racing schedule. Does anyone have any races of note coming up this month? In June we have what has become a celebration run for TRY - Paige's Butterfly Run. Please let me know if you want to be part of the Centipede Division team(s) for this year? Same price for the race, but five times the fun! It is Saturday, June 4th and we have about 2 more weeks to get in before the price goes up. Depending on the people interested, we do some creative shuffling and almost always come up with a decent solution. Plus we will need some team name and theme inspiration, even from people that know they cannot take part. I'm not sure if we've tapped out Stevil's imagination yet?

I have not done a lot of digging yet this season to find useful, running related, links to share, so I will start now. I like to sprinkle in just enough useful things to keep you coming back for more. Many of us have tried compression socks or calf sleeves. But do compression garments actually work for runners? Here is a short article with a mixed answer - science says no, but a believing mind says yes.

For those of you who have tried them. Are you a true believer? Do you have any proof? Is there any way to actually prove such claims. (It would seem to me that the placebo effect is probably as good as anything they can do physically.)

For anyone actually willing to answer my questions - please "reply" by posting in the comment thread on the Facebook group page. That will get the most visibility and save people from having to worry about checking the comments on the blog page itself.

Soggy Goat

Through the fog I can see a forecast of 60 and mostly cloudy at TRY time. Come on out and enjoy the pleasant spring conditions.

I was hoping for more inspiration but instead I went the easy, but very pretty, route and screen-captured a bunch of TRYers from the Mountain Goat Run on Sunday morning. It was fun to see so many familiar faces zoom past in Onondaga park and it seems like the race went well for most of you. Unfortunately there are a bunch of people with no photos available (at least at this point)...but with so many TRYers running, we still have several to soggy photos to see:

 

 



Cynthia has had much better looking days!



The Gerega Wave winner for 2016:



And a friendly rivalry 2 decades in the making: