Free Wi-Fi!?!....Fuuuuuggedaboudit!

Reporting from the plush easy chairs at the Barnes & Noble Café in Millbury, but actually publishing from the more cost-effective comfort of my own already-paid-for internet connection at home, I bring to you the pre-weekend edition of the daily runaround.

I’ve received a good amount of feedback on recent posts – all of which is greatly appreciated, by the way – and wish to use this entry to expand upon some of the suggestions that have been made to me in regards to what people would like included in my blog. Luckily for those of you reading this, my aim here is to please - so as they say in showbiz, here goes nuthin’…

Paul left a comment on yesterday’s entry that he would like me to get “painstakingly detailed” about my training and racing – well, brace yourself then, cause this is gonna hurt.

With this being a down week in my current four-week training scheme, along with the first race of the season only two days away, my past few training sessions have been relatively low-key mileage/intensity wise. Today I had the fortune of not having to work, so I was able to utilize the extra time on my hands and get two runs in on the day. Upon waking up this morning, I downed a cup of green tea along with a chocolate chip cookie and covered my standard 4.25 mile road loop from home in 27:40. I felt unusually lively this morning, but I reckon it had something to do with the unseasonably warm 55-degree temperature and accompanying sunshine. About five hours after the completion of this morning’s little jaunt, I hopped in my car to meet Ryan at his house in Clinton for a quick stride session of 6 x 200m w/90 seconds recovery on the Clinton High School outdoor oval. After a 24 minute warmup on the (gasp) trails, we tightened up the laces on our trainers and got to work. The goal was to hit between 31-32 seconds for each half-lap circuit and we were very successful in our conquest, recording times of 31.95, 31.68, 31.59, 31.26, 31.14 and finishing up with a wind-aided 30.77 effort. We cooled down for 15 minutes back to Ryan’s place, capping off a roughly seven-mile afternoon session.

Tomorrow’s plan is for an easy 40-50 minute run with Hodgie-San in the morning to cap my week at 75 miles. Sunday afternoon will mark my first indoor track race in almost two years as I toe the line for a 3000-meter free-for-all at the GBTC Invitational hosted by Harvard University. My goal for the race is to shake off any competitive rust and hopefully PR in the process. I’m feeling good about my current level of fitness and believe that my current all-time best of 8:33 is in serious jeopardy. Just gotta go out, let it rip, and what happens, well, happens. Check back here Sunday night to see how it all went down.

Now, I dunno if that sort of detailed summary hurt any of you, per se, but it damn near killed me! I’m not sure if I have the time, energy, and/or patience to go into that many specifics about my training on a daily basis, but I’ll do my best to keep ya’ll informed enough to the point that you’re able to hopefully take something out of it. (n.b. I keep my daily log on athleticore.com – registration is free, so give it a whirl) Believe me, I’m not claiming that there’s anything revolutionary or inherently special about what I’m doing with my own running, but I truly believe that by sharing training ideas, etc. we can all help each other out in our efforts. As always, gimme some feedback and lemme know how I’m doing in that respect.

OK, enough with all this running talk….for now, at least. Time to move on to one of my other passions in life: The Boston Red Sox.

Theo Epstein is back in town - that is, if he ever really left in the first place. The team issued a statement yesterday saying that the former general manager will return to the organization in a “full-time baseball operations capacity” without releasing any other specific details. Apparently, we’ll find those out next week. So what does this mean exactly? Good question. Here’s my own disjointed take on the matter: Theo got sick of Larry “Legend In His Own Mind” Lucchino not letting him do his job as GM, so he “resigned” to show ’ol Larry his dissatisfaction. Here’s where things get comical. Lucky Larry, thinking he has all the answers, promotes two clueless ass-kissing schmucks to take over as co-general managers to carry out his will without fear of objection and/or criticism from a GM who actually knows baseball. Well wouldn’t ya know that after about three months of dismembering his band of “idiots” while yielding nothing in return (other than landing Josh Beckett from Florida in the midst of a fluke trade), Lucchino finally comes to the realization that neither he nor the two clowns he hired knows anything about putting together a winning baseball team. Theo, who entertains plenty of lucrative offers both in and outside of the baseball world while all this ridiculousness is unfolding, just sits pretty and enjoys his temporary stint of unemployment. Why? Hey, they don’t call him Boy Wonder for nothing. The bottom line? Theo never really went anywhere - he didn’t have to. All along, the young stud knew that it was just a matter of time before the real Idiot came to his senses. Genius, if you ask me.

Speaking of genius, I'm gonna wise up and get my ass to bed at a reasonable hour after working till well past 1 this morning. Here's hoping for a good start to everyone's weekend. Take it easy.

Quote of the day:

A minister once tried to get me to go to church, but I told him I am as close to God when I'm running around White Rock Lake as I'm ever going to get.
-Following the Flame, p. 329