Inconsistency

Continuing with my theme of inconsistent consitency, I'm writing again.

The days and weeks are flying by as September approaches. Soon, very soon, friends will start going off to school, and the population of greater-Concord will begin to shrink.

Tonight, is a bit of a send-off for Gwen, who heads to Ghana this weekend for a semester of studying. We all wish you well Gwen, but you will be missed!

As for me, I'm almost beginning to feel recovered from the weekend. My body can usually handle one night of little sleep, but two in a row is just a recipe for disaster. I need a lot of sleep as it is, so that took a while to get over.

Tuesday I had a pretty terrible workout. I found myself struggling to keep up with Jon by the end. For some reason, anything longer than 200m right now just feels like I'm running through sand. I hate not being in shape, but I know that the more of these workouts I suffer through, the closer I'm getting to being able to run the ones that will go well. I guess I just need to adjust my expectations.

Yesterday, I had my second test in my calculus class, which I thought had gone well but then we reviewed it today in class. The problem with a 4 question test is that when you fuck up one problem there goes a quarter of your points. Oh well, last time a 28% was scaled to a C, so I'm not too worried. I spent the afternoon working on Ableton and in the evening went to Cold Springs to run with the Newton Summer Running Project. I had a pretty nice run with Terry and a few others. It felt good to run at a steady, but quicker pace. I think part of my problem with these workouts the past few weeks is that I'm just not running fast enough most days. It's definitely good to run easy, but I need to get my training pace back down to 6:00 instead of 6:40.

In other news, Phish is on tour again! The boys kicked off the tour with a 4 day run at the infamous Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, CO. I haven't listened to all of the shows yet, but what I've heard sounds good. After a few more days on the West coast, they head back through the midwest and then back to New England for the end of the tour. I'm planning on catching two of their last shows in Hartford and Saratoga.

Speaking of Saratoga, I'm a little bummed out in the Skidmore denied what I thought was a pretty reasonable request for a single room. I guess the part that bugs me the most is that I actually spent a pretty good amount of time filling out a long application with lots of long-answer kind of questions and they responded with what was clearly an impersonal email. It just kind of sucks because I don't want to go into this experience with a bad taste in my mouth, yet I feel like that was kind of a dick move on their part. Is it bad to go into my first year of college already planning a transfer?

I think that subconsciously I must be much more anxious than I think I am. I've started having panic attacks and a lot more general anxiety lately. I imagine it's a whole lot of things, some biological and some enviornmental, but it's still definitely never fun.

Building Up

I return to an attempt at regular writing already experiencing a problem of commitment. A few weeks ago, in thinking about where I had been a year earlier, I remembered the start of this blog. I started on the first day of August in 2008, which for me, at the time, was actually late at night on the 31st of July. I had been thinking about writing, thinking about what I wanted to write so much for those weeks leading up to that point that I couldn't wait.

Upon realizing this anniversary of my little journal's inception, I decided that would be as good a milestone as any to push me into writing again. I set out to begin writing again on that first day of August and, as with many ideas that I have on runs, I promtly forgot about it until now.

So, here I am. I'm a few days late, but a little late is better than never, right? Indeed.

Build-Ups.

August will be a month of build-ups, of escalations. Almost everything in my life is gaining intensity at what sometimes feels like an alarmingly fast rate.

The building up of mileage in running is a good model for almost all similar build-ups. When one begins to run more and more miles there are strange effects that the body and the mind can handle in different ways. Some of these results are relatively predictable and similarly easy to deal with. As you run more miles, you eat more. As you run more miles, you sleep more. The list goes on.

However, something remarkable happens after a week or even a few days. What was an increase becomes the norm. Your body has a wonderful way of adapting to stresses, especially for a youthful soul such as myself. Before you realize it, the same intensity that was stressing your body to the max a few weeks ago is just another commonplace, daily activity.

All of this for what? Why the stress and the increase and the fighting against yourself? It's simple: we're working towards that catalyst. In running, your looking for that workout that tells you that you're a runner again, that you're in great shape. A build-up is the stress that lies in the fore-shadow of catalysm.

So, August. August is September's introduction, warm-up, opening band (depending on your metaphor). It's that anticipation throughout the month that makes everything seem so much more intense.

I have a feeling that this August will be particularly intense for me. One of the largest changes in any young person's life, moving out of the house (and into college in my case) is only a month away.

I feel like I should write a bit about the last few months, not that anyone is reading this, but it's nice to look back on myself later. Let me work month by month from when I last wrote:

February: I spent the entire month living with my grandparents in Florida. Running was going great; I won every race I entered and built a large base of miles for the spring racing season. They were lonely times for me, though. I missed the human interaction of being around my peers.

March: I was set to leave Florida at the beginning of this month with my parents. What began as a quick visit from my parents ended up being a week long stay for all of us as my grandmother suffered a series of strokes. As things cooled down, my father and I drove from Florida to Virginia for Phish's first concert in nearly 5 years. We then returned home and I spent a week or so in New Mexico hiking and running with Anna. Near the end of the month, Anna and I broke up. More on this later.

April: April is the cruelest of the months. Although broken up Anna and I continued to talk and act relatively civil to each other. It seemed clear that our friendship would last beyond our relationship. After a few weeks, however, I found out that she had been acting with inappropriate duplicity, had lied to me directly about it, and refused to take any responsibility for her actions. That was the last time we spoke regularly. My running was going okay, but I found myself in a rut in terms of racing. I was running about the same times, which were pretty mediocre, and showing little improvement. After searching for a job for a few weeks, I found myself working at Wendy's, the only establishment that would hire me at the time. Between my social problems, my terrible job, and my poor running performances, I found myself very depressed and alone.

May: May was when things started to change. I quit my job at Wendy's and started doing IT work for triple the pay. People started coming home from college and I found myself being more social. I spent a few weekends visiting my brother at Dartmouth where I had a few very memorable nights. Near the end of the month, I finally had my break-out race at the USATF Grand Prix 12k. I started running faster in workouts and was feeling great about the summer and my last few races.

June: June started on a down note as I was injured just a few days before one of my last races. What I thought was at first a stress fracture of the fibula ended up being some nasty tendonitis around my ankle. I was on crutches for a few weeks but once I was accurately diagnosed and taking ibuprofen, I improved very quickly. Duncan and I went camping in the white mountains for a few days. By the end of the month, I had started minimal running again.

July: In picking out my classes for Skidmore in the fall, I somehow ended up taking a 6 week summer course at UMass Lowell in an effort to place out of more classes. I continued running and increasing my mileage at a frustratingly slow pace. I often found myself surrounded by people that I love. The sun seemed to shine brighter.

August: What will August hold? I imagine an increase in intensity. All of the emotions and practicalities of moving out come to the forefront as there are less and less days for me to not think about it.

For now, I'm just trying to enjoy it. I'm trying to enjoy the people, the places, the sights and smells. Hopefully, that will leave me in a place where change is welcome, not needed or feared.

Valentine's Victory

This morning, I toed a starting line with a few hundred other people andfor the first time since Fenn cross country, I crossed the finish line first. It's true; I haven't won a single race in the last 5 years or so. I've had a few age-group wins and a few good times and places, but I hadn't legitimately won a race until today.

The morning began as any raceday morning would: in the dark. The first light is always the hardest to turn on when it's still dark out. I have it down to a science by now, though, where I can turn on the bathroomlight and then stay in my room until my eyes are adjusted to the light from the bathroom, then I can finally make my way in and face the day.

I got my bag packed up with some food, drink, spikes, etc. I hit the road a little after 6:00am and it was still pretty dark. I pulled off 95 a half hour or so later and sun had begun to show signs of rising. In addition to the light, a thick fog had settled on the Florida inland, restricting visibility to less than 100 meters. I pulled into "Pointe West," one of the the many Levittown-esque housing developemnts in South Florida. I followed the line of cars with "run" and "26.2" stickers and parked on a large field.

By the time I got checked in, got my t-shirt, and had gotten back to my car to regroup, the sun was a giant gleaming ball just above the tree-line. I looked at my watch: 7:10. Still too early to start the warmup. So, I sat back in my car and read about Quentin Cassidy's race against famed Australian miler, Jon Walton. The selection always gets my blood pumping and puts me in my most competetive of mindsets.

I finished the chapter and headed out for a few easy miles before the race. The 7:30 pace felt remarkably stiff and difficult, but I find that it almost always does before a race. In fact, I can't remember the last race when I DIDN'T think to myself "Oh my gosh, if it's this hard to run 7:30 pace, how am I going to run [race pace]???"

Following Quentin's advice, I ran away from the hubub of the race and down a long dirt road for a few miles. When I headed back, people were already lining up, so I headed over to my car to change into my spikes. After my terrible experience with wet socks weighing me down the other day, I decided to risk it and go barefoot. I've always liked this, though I've been known to get blisters.

I did my drills on the way over to the line and a few strides. I felt solid on my strides, like I was getting a really high turnover, so I felt decent while toeing off.

The signal was just a "GO" shouted into a megaphone. There was a bit of chaos but by the end of the first stretch (maybe 300m), I was already alone. I looked down at my watch which said I was running 5:00 pace, so I eased up a bit after that.

Running alone on a quick race like the 5k is a hard thing to do. It's remarkably easy to slow down and not know it when there's no one around you.

Anyways, I came through the 1 mile in 5:21, which I figured would be on the fast end of my goal pace given the quick start (by the way, I will post all of my half mile splits at the bottom for anyone who's interested). Also, before I forget, going into this race Jon and I had set my goal time as 16:40-50 which is about 5:21-5:25/mile pace. Given that I've done very little speed-work and mostly base running and I ran a half marathon 6 days ago, I didn't expect this race to be a monster PR or anything.

Anyways, the second mile was a loop though fog-filled Levittown before heading back to the first mile's road and back to the finish. The course was pretty poorly marked. This neighborhood was a maze of identical streets with identical houses on streets that were all labeled 32nd Ave or 76th Blvd. The turns were marked with flour which I'm sure lasted through about the first 20 runners. With the fog, I'm amazed I didn't get lost.

When my watch told me I was at the 2.5 mile mark, I picked it up a bit. I've been practicing surges at the end of my moderate runs, which I think paid off well. My last 800 was tied with my first for the fastest of the race and I had a good amount of energy to kick in the last 200m or so.

It was a good feeling crossing that line first. I know it may have been a po-dunk race without any real competition, but it was still a good feeling. A win is a win, no matter how inconsequential.


Anyways, I got a little trophy and then I headed back here. I've just been chillin out the rest of the day. I did a bit of grocery shopping and a light pool run workout this afternoon. I'm planning on doing a long run tomorrow of 16-20 miles, depending on heat, humidity, etc.

All in all, I'm much more pleased with today's race than Sunday's half. Besides the ego-boost, I think it was a better performance overall and my time more accurately reflected my effort, which is the most important thing.



EDIT: Here are the 1/2 mile splits I forgot to add:

Pace Total
2:39 2:39
2:42 5:21 (5:21 Mile)
2:51 8:13
2:45 10:58 (5:36 mile)
2:45 13:43
2:39 16:23 (5:24 mile)
0:24 16:47 (Last .1 and Finish)

Lucky 13

This week has gone by pretty quickly and I have a while free now, so I wanted to jot some things down.

After spending Monday getting fully recovered from my half-marathon, I got back into my regular training regimen. This week may be slightly lower mileage due to a day off on Monday, but I've actually been working out harder than before. I've finally added my core routine back to my morning workouts, and I'm now doing two workouts a day every day except for long-run-Sundays.

I'm being careful to keep my mileage in the 60s, so my morning workouts only consist of a pool-run or bike ride. I find two really nice benefits to these morning workouts. One is that I'm able to basically double my aerobic exercise per day without adding too much more stress on my joints. The other, and if anything this may be more important, is that it loosens me up for my afternoon workouts. For example, I've been doing intervals or tempo on Wednesdays, and I've often found that my Thursday runs feel stiff and slow for the first 20 or 30 minutes. Well, having a workout in the morning, be it a pool run or a bike ride, let's me get that stiffness taken care of before I even lace up my running shoes that afternoon. That way, I may feel a little stiff in the pool, but that's okay. Once I get to my afternoon run, I'm ready to run at 6:00 pace instead of having to waste the first half of the run just getting loose.

Anyways, so that's been going well. Wednesday I did my first interval workout in a while. I went down into Ft. Pierce where they have a pretty nice track. Unfortunately, the track is around a football field which they were watering with sprinklers while I was there. It was almost fun playing gauntlet on the warmup, trying to dodge the plumes of water being shot onto the track, but once I started the workout, it became pretty annoying. My shoes and socks were quickly drenched which about doubled the weight of my feet. All in all, it was still a decent workout and it was nice to get moving quickly again.

I also managed to get some employment this week, though it was only a one time thing. I helped my grandmother's neighbor set up her computer and tried to get AOL set up, which was far more complicated than it should have been. Anyways, I made some decent money, so it's all good.

Yesterday (Thursday), I had a pretty decent run, despite it being 80+ degrees and humid. I did an 8 mile out/back with the out at 23:55 and the back at 24:04, quite comfortably. My moderate pace seems to have settled between 5:55 and 6:15 pace, which I think my lungs have been okay with since Ecuador, but my legs are just finally getting used to. I'm glad, though, because I feel like training with a slightly higher turnover has made me a lot smoother and will hopefully give me more speed when track season comes around.

I got on the mailing list of a local running store and it turns out there are actually a lot of races around here. There's a 5k this weekend and a 10k next, so I may jump in one or both for kicks, depending on how I'm feeling. I often use Saturdays as a tempo day, so this would work out well (and maybe give me the opportunity to interact with some people who eat dinner after 5:00.

Anyways, I'm still not sure what my plans are for the end of this stay. There's been a lot of confusion about when my grandmother wants me to leave/what my parents want to do/how I'm going to get home, etc. I think the current plan is that my parents may fly down for a few days or a week or so and then my dad and I will drive to Phish before heading home. But who knows... it's all crazy, as usual.

Also, not sure if I mentioned this but it looks like I might be heading to New Mexico for a week or so in March with the Hagers which should be a lot of fun. Hopefully, it'll all work out.

So, that's about it. Not a whole lot else to say. I'll try to keep writing when exciting things are happening.

Tyler Andrews' US Half Marathon Debut

Now that I have my brain functioning again, I'll write a bit about my half marathon experience yesterday.

All week, I've been getting up earlier and going to bed earlier in preparation for Sunday's VERY early morning. Saturday, I drove to Melbourne to see how long it would take and to get my race packet and it took about an hour and fifteen minutes. With a 6:45 gun, leaving an hour to park, warm-up, etc, I wanted to get there at 5:45, which meant leaving the house at 4:30. Yikes!

So, I got up between 3:30 and 4:00 and packed up everything I'd need for the day ahead. Despite the sun not even considered rising yet, the temperature on my outside thermometer read 64 degrees. This was a whole lot warmer than I expected and so I was a bit nervous heading out. The drive actually took me longer and I was a bit late leaving, so I didn't get there until close to 6:00. Luckily, I followed all the other cars (figure that most everyone up and driving at 6:00 Sunday morning would be people for this race) and found a big grass lot that was only a few blocks from the starting line.

I parked and hopped out and for whatever reason, Melbourne's air was a good 10-15 degrees cooler. Perfect for a good, long race. Even more exciting was that the wind was very calm. I jogged down to the starting line, so I knew where it was and then jogged away from the crowd and commotion, into the comfortably cool pre-dawn darkness. At one point, I found myself a mile or so away from the start, where the world had not yet come to embrace the day, and it seemed like even the streetlights were still asleep. Suddenly, I saw something scurry across the street. It was the size of a small dog but moved like lion, sprinting across the deserted road. I was convinced that I wasn't even going to make it to the starting line as I was about to become some sort of strange southern-mountain lion's breakfast.

Remarkably, I made it back to civilization with no more chupacabra sitings. By the time I got there, a good sized crowd had already amassed near the starting line. I looked at my watch and still had a good 10 minutes before the start, so I walked away from the crowd again to do my foot drills and strides. Feeling pretty solid, I began to work my way from the back of the start-line to the front.

There were a few thousand people crowded together at this point, and it took me a couple of minutes to walk through all the pace zones :"9-10 minute miles" all the way down to "sub-6 minute miles." I stopped there at the first sign and looked around. Surprisingly, most of the people around me looked pretty old. Eventually, I would figure out that this race was the US Master's Half Marathon Championship, meaning that these were the best runners in the country (over 40) at this distance. It calmed down my ego a bit when I saw 50+ year olds passing me on the course.

There was a pretty long pre-race ceremony that involved a pretty poor saxophonist, some jingoistic speeches about country and military, and the general welcome that you just want to be over so you can start the race. During this time, an older fellow behind me said "good luck!" and shook my hand. I reciprocated and continued shaking the hands of a few people around me (the good ol CA way). It wasn't until a few minutes later when someone walked by and whispered "There's Bill Rodgers!" to her husband, that I realized who had wished me good luck.

The day before, when I had gone to pick up my race packet, there was supposed to be a signing and photo-op with famed marathoner Bill Rodgers, however, after waiting for 45 minutes with no Bill, I decided he wasn't going to show and left. I knew that he was supposed to run in this race, but I hadn't thought that he would be toeing off right behind me.

I began to talk to him again, realizing who he was. I told him that I, too, was from New England and asked him about his racing, etc. All in all, he seemed like a nice enough guy.

Finally, after the longest opening ceremonies I've ever had to sit through, the gun fired and we were off. The first few miles are the ones I remember the most clearly. The leaders went out slow, and so running my pace I was in the chase pack for the first mile or two. Two 40-45 runners broke away right from the start but there were probably 8-10 of us in that first chase pack. I thought it would be great to run with a pack like that the whole race, but they started to pick it up and go sub-5:30 which was just way out of my league. It was also around this time that I was passed by Olympian and the eventual winner of the women's race, Coleen DeReuck. She was still in shape to run 1:12:00 for the half, so I was okay with letting her by.

And so, as usual, I was in no-man's-land. It seemed like there was this huge empty space between that chase pack and (if there was one) the next pack back. From miles 2-6 or so, I ran with a younger guy, probably about 25, who told me he had tried to register that morning and couldn't and so was just running for fun without a number. This guy was wearing baggy, basketball shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt. I figured, either he's a really serious runner just goofing around, or he's going to fall apart pretty soon. Well, we continued on and he would talk a surprisingly large amount given both of our effort levels. I guess he was just a friendly guy.

The first 6 miles are basically due North. The course is basically shaped like a rectangle around the Indian river, with two long 5-6 mile stretches on either side and two long causway bridges to cross the river. We went through 5 miles in 28:40, which was right on pace (5:44/mile). My goal of 5:48/mile would bring me in with a sub-76 (1:16:00) and I felt like I had gone through the first 5 miles very comfortably and a bit ahead of that pace.

The first bridge felt pretty good. The bridges were long and arched, making them the only real hills on the course. I had dropped my friend at this point and was making pretty decent time going up this bridge. About a third of the way up, a guy came up on my right and told me to stick with him as he really booked it up this bridge. For whatever reason, I listened, and it really tired me out.

Coming down was a nice break, but a half mile or so of downhill pounding on pavement is never all that pleasant. Still, I was able to recover a bit and get back into my pace. miles 6 and 7 were the flat part of the causway and by the time I got to mile 8 in 46:08 (5:46/mile), I was still feeling good. About halfway through this mile, though, we were coming around a corner and I made a mistake that cost me my time. There was a cement drainage channel between the curb and the shoulder of the road, and between that ditch and shoulder there was about a 1-inch lip that I didn't see. Had I cut that corner half an inch wider, I may very well have run a great race. But I didn't see the lip and my right foot twisted and rolled to the right enough to make me let out an audible yelp.

I slowed to a near stop, but continued jogging. It was probably a few minutes before I even started really running again, and by that time it was a whole lot slower. I felt terrible about watching my great race slip away between my fingertips for (basically) being a clumsy idiot, but it wasn't worth putting the next weeks of training in jeopardy. So, I took the last couple miles a lot easier, until I finally felt like I could start to push it again. The last mile I got back under 6:00/mile pace and even finished with a good kick.

I finished the race feeling pretty dissatisfied with my time (somewhere near 1:20:00), but overall very satisfied with the effort. The race was supposed to be an indicator of my strength and fitness. Not only did I get that indication, but I think the results were pretty good.

After I got some water and walked around in a haze for a bit, I found the free-massage-table and hopped on board. I got stretched out and had her work my ITs and hamstrings and it was super-nice. I told her about my ankle roll and she pointed me in the direction of the medical tent. The medic told me that as long as I had full range of motion and it wasn't too swollen, that it wasn't too bad. He told me to ice and and take some ibuprofen tonight.

There were a whole bunch of post-race activities going on. There was a free pancake breakfast and a bunch of booths and stalls giving away stuff. I actually headed back to my car pretty quickly because once I stopped running I got pretty cold. I changed my shoes and put on a few more layers and jogged a couple of super-slow miles to cooldown.

I'd heard that Bill Rodgers would be presenting the awards, so I decided to stick around, hoping I could talk to him or something. Also, I hadn't seen many other sub-20 year olds, so I figured I might get a shout out for being first in that age group. So, I was stuck listening to a ZZ-Top coverband for 40 minutes before the awards started. I did meet a couple of nice guys who had flown down from Maine just for this race. They were masters who were both getting awards and had both run a good bit faster than me.

When it finally started, it took a while, but I ended up getting a Gold Medallion for my achievements. Not bad for a day's work. Both one of the older guys I met and my coach, Jon, who I talked to later, said similar things about winning. I didn't really give this medal that much worth because there really wasn't a whole lot of competition in my age group (the next finisher was 10 minutes behind me). But, as Jon said, "Winning is winning, you can't beat it." I think there's a whole lot of truth to that, and I also think of what Peter Jennings once said about cross country which was "even just being out here on this team you are beating all of the people who were too chicken to even try." I think this is even more applicable in a race like this where my time may not be that great, but the dedication it took me to get here is worth something. Between getting up at 3:30 in the morning, running on a mildly sprained ankle, and just having the drive to want to run a race this long, maybe I deserve something.

Getting There

It's now been almost two weeks since I've gotten here, and so far, my search for work has been seemingly fruitless. I've sent my resume to a good 30 classified ads, applied in person for 5 or more positions, and put up flyers all over the condo complex where I'm living advertising computer help and general handy-man work. Still, alas, I have nothing.

The week down here has been going pretty well. I ran a tempo run on Wednesday morning, which went quite well. It was the classical example of feeling pretty lousy on a warmup and then getting into the run and feeling all right. I ended up running 22:34 for 4 miles (5:38/mile), which is in the range I was hoping for. Also, I was running into a very strong headwind that probably slowed me down by 10-20 seconds per mile coming back, so the effort was probably close to 22:00.

I've been waking up and running earlier and earlier each morning to prepare for the 6:45am gun on Sunday. This morning I got up between 5:00 and 5:30 and ran at 6:45, which is pretty close to what I'll have to do on Sunday. I'm feeling pretty good about the race. I don't think my goals are unreasonable and I don't have too much emotionally invested in it. I've only been in this phase of training for a few weeks, now, and I wouldn't expect to be in tip-top shape.

So, the rest of the day will probably consist of a nap, eating, maybe a bit of light core or pool running or something just to get rid of some of my excess energy, and getting to bed good and early. I say that every night, but no matter what, I always end up going to bed at 10:00. Every night I say "right after colbert, I'm going to bed." And then I get caught up in something else, and before I know it, another hour has gone by. Oh my. Well, tonight for sure. If it's in writing you're more likely to do it, right?

I'm also gaining some clarity about what the coming weeks and months are going to look like. It looks like I may be going to New Mexico with Anna and her mom (kind of randomly came together, but it should be super cool if it works out) for a few days of hiking and camping and the like. This would be in March, after I get back from Florida and before my grandfather's surgery.

After that, it looks like I'd head up to Hanover relatively soon after. I believe my grandfather's surgery is on the 26th, so I imagine I'd be up there by then at the latest. Hopefully it won't be too cold and snowy; I'm really enjoying running on grass and dirt.

So, today and tomorrow are likely to be low-key days. Getting up early tomorrow again and then probably driving up to Melbourne in the afternoon to get my race packet and check out the course. The temperatures look like they'll be just about perfect: no precipitaiton and low to mid 50s. The only wildcard is whether the wind decides to act up. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Heartless Punk

Greetings! Last night I figured out how to record some of my live mixing, so I posted a couple on Jam Glue. Keep in mind, the quality is pretty bad because what I did was literally plug my headphones out into my mic in. So, it has that PC microphone hum behind it. You should get the idea, though. I think there are three mash-ups there right now, which I just recorded while mixing around during a set. One is Notorious BIG's Juicy and Massive Attack's Teardrop (also the theme from House). Next is a mix of MIA's Paper Planes and TI's What you Know. Finally, Kanye's Heartless and Daft Punk's Harder Better Faster Stronger. Check em out here:

http://www.jamglue.com/people/TylerCAndrews

Just look on the right and click the play button next to the track listing and you should get it.

Anyways, things have been going pretty well down here. I'm getting ready for my American half marathon debut this weekend. I'm doing a tempo run tomorrow as my hard run and then a mini-taper.

Well, the week has started off all right. February certainly seems a whole lot nicer when there's sun instead of gloom, despair, and snow. Yesterday, I managed to get some work fixing this woman's laptop, but other than that, I've been unsuccessful in the work front.

All in all, things down here are going pretty well. I can tell that this kind of atmosphere is what I need to really train successfully. Other than the environment and facilities, which are wonderful in themselves, I have enough time to get 10 to 11 hours of sleep a night and I don't have a whole lot down here to distract me. There are no parties to go to and stay out late at, nothing to push back workouts. I'm able to really focus on my training and all the other parts of training that aren't running: diet, sleep, stress, core/weights/cross training, etc.

I think it's a double-edged sword though. I've only been here a little over a week and I'm starting to feel a little bit like a hermit. It's not that my training doesn't satisfy me or tire me out, because it does both entirely. I think it's just hard to be a social being living somewhere where there's really no one with whom you can be social. So yes, it's great because I don't have any social opportunity to distract me from my training, but at the same time, I feel like a minimal amount of human contact might be nice too.

Well, that's all for now. I'm going down to the gym to do some core and maybe some leg-lifting if I feel up to it. Tempo tomorrow!