Running in the rain

It was really cool to hear from some of you after my last post about all of... you! The week has been ok from a running perspective although I was not able to run every day. On Wednesday I went to a conference in San Francisco and only realized the night before it was the Giant's parade; what a circus on the train... On Friday, I started with a teleconference at 7 AM (later than usual) and left the office at midnight, having just a nice lunch break with Jerome where we mostly talked about work so it was almost 17 hours non stop... 18 miles on Montebello Road last Sunday, 11 miles at Alviso on Monday, 6 miles in the neighborhood on Tuesday, 5.5 miles at the Mountain View High School track on Thursday with Bob under the stars and a super clear and dark sky, 22.5 miles to the top of Black Mountain yesterday and 9 miles today, in the rain... So, while I was enjoying running in the rain, I was thinking of what I would blog about and came up with a poem, which applies both to my laps in the neighborhood today and my 74 laps on Crissy Field at the San Francisco One Day race. Not alexandrines but some rhymes still. Enjoy before you too go for a run or a walk in the rain.

Running in the rain

Fall, it is this time again

For running in the rain!

Nature has its bag of tricks

To fill up our nearby creeks…

With this effort, is it the sweat

Or the rain which gets me wet?

Miles pass but the rain won’t stop

And there is more than one drop

On and under my rain jacket

Oh, the fun is not over yet!

My eyes are well protected

Under the visor of my cap

And my mind not too affected

So let's go for another lap!

Musing apart, it was a big race weekend for many between The New York Marathon, Helen Klein 50K and 50-mile or the Lithia Loop US Trail Marathon Championship. Looking forward to reading about my friends' results and race reports. I signed up for a much more modest event next Saturday at Shoreline in Mountain View, organized by the Give Light Foundation to raise funds to create durable orphanages in response to natural disasters and extreme conditions (poverty and war). Please consider joining us if you live in the area or are in town next weekend. There is a 10K and 5K run and 5K walk and it's on Saturday November 13th.

I also plan on closing my running season with the Applied Material Silicon Valley Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, hesitating between the 5 and 10K, while Agnès aims at walking the 5K (she is now back to swimming, cycling and NIA, albeit refraining herself from training for strength...); amazing recovery!

More miles and fun in perspective, in the rain! ;-) What about you, do you like and enjoy the rain?

Miwok 09: Scott again?

Miwok is just around the corner, next week, and I really look forward to it! Principally for the company as we will be several hundred runners toeing the start line. Including some big shots who are still trying to make it into Western States. This is the last of 6 Montrail Ultra Cup races, each of them providing the top 3 males and 3 females an entry to States. I also look forward to running Miwok for the amazing scenery. For its challenging course and ups and downs. And, hopefully, to have a good race, without asthma, after it triggered badly at American River and Ruth Anderson.

That has been a busy week again at work, with many and long hours. Several times this week I started conference calls with Europe or the East Coast before 6 am, and unplugged after 11 pm. But I managed to run a strong 20-miler on Wednesday and a great PG&E loop at Rancho this Friday. Only 9.3 miles but some hills and the last mile under 5:30. I definitely have speed this year, I'm just missing my 80 VO2max lungs when asthma is burning them...

Anyway, I captured one more piece of excitement about Miwok, the one related to seeing Scott again coming down to run in California. In my second poem on this blog, another acrostic, with rhymes this time, and another format, 20 x 10 (I know, this isn't a canonical way to describe a poem, you can see my engineer-background resurfacing...). Here you go, my way to put a bet on Scott, before Karl (Meltzer) publishes his own bets on Monday.

Here is a picture of Scott running with Tarahumara runner Arnulfo Quimare, in Mexico's Copper Canyons(source: The painful truth about trainers, in MailOnline):

Scott is back on the Miwok course next week!
Competition will surely not be weak,
Or they would not run in the Montrail Cup...
Teammate with Brooks, I am all fired up
To take the start with such a nice hero!

Joyful should we all be at ground zero,
Up so early for a very long day...
Rodeo Lagoon will see us today,
Enjoying as much of the bright daylight,
Killing the need to turn on our headlight

Randall Trail is marking the turnaround
Opposite point where some get their rebound;
Consistent runners have found their pacers,
Kudos Tia will give to finishers.
Scott will give it all to show up the first!

After 9 Miwoks no way Scott can burst!
Grabbing the wins for him seems so obvious,
Although each race brings its own mysterious
Insights that the elites manage to use,
Nailing down the hills which our quads refuse!

With that, talk to you in one week, or after Miwok if I don't see you there!

With Scott, after Way Too Cool 2008 (no he wasn't 21, but I was 44...):
With Tia (Bodington, RD) and Bev at the finish in 2008:

Spring musing

After 109 posts on this blog, here is a new genre, a poem. No rhymes, but an acrostic and 24 alexandrines! To recount my day. Here you are...

March 21, 2009

Spring reached the Bay, blooming flowers gave the signal!
Pounding on the road came the poem idea,
Rajeev ultra poet inspired my musing.
In school was the last time I wrote some poetry,
New experiences keep thrill into our lives,
Greg's recent poems, another inspiration.

Sprinting I reached lonely Black Mountain this morning,
P.R. by 10 seconds I celebrated Spring,
Records I like for my Farther Faster mantra.
In 2 weeks, A.R. 50-mile will test my shape,
No asthma this time should make Agnes and Greg wait.
To you my blog readers, I wish a happy Spring!

Brooks are obviously the shoes I strode in today;
Reviewing the Trance 8 model I will blog next,
In 9 pairs of Trance I ran 9,000 fun miles;
New Cascadias 4 I also received this week,
Ground and dirt they will meet on many miles this year,
Speed and placing they will help me achieve again.

Smiles were countless in the musical last evening.
Max excelled and delighted the crowd in Ted's role,
In a flashy white tux he flew over the stage.
Lights, sounds and set, Alex was involved in, backstage.
Exhausted Max was after leading stress-less week.
Show, excitement and smiles go on for four more nights!

And some notes and explanations as a bonus:

1. I ran to the top of Black Mountain this morning. Because of the pain in the hip I did not plan to go out fast but I got caught into the excitement of passing bikes on the steep Montebello road. By the school I was still under 8 minutes/mile pace and did not slow down. I passed 11 cyclists total and reached the top in a personal record of 1:30. A great run to celebrate Spring.
2. Rajeev acts as the Managing Director of our ultraholics Yahoo! group and has titled his blog The Poetic Runner. In addition to his inspiration, I discovered Greg's talent for writing peoms at school last week. They are funny and clever!
3. I received the latest Trance and Cascadia models from Brooks this week, and I will blog soon about these great shoes (I am part of Brook's Inspire Daily group) and a big fan of this brand which focuses only on running, and in which I ran more than 13,000 miles.
4. AR stands for American River and is a very competitive 50-mile race which I ran for the first time in 2008. I ran only the first 15 miles actually before being hit by one of these exercise-induced asthma crisis. I then walked for the remaining 35 miles, finishing in 8:53, 3 hours and 10 minutes after the winner, Tony Krupicka. Hope to shave at least two hours off this time this year.
5. Then, last night was the premiere of the musical Smile, at Cupertino High School (in addition to performing and singing, Max helped making costumes, and created the grapical design of the tickets and website). The musical has been written by the same author as Chorus Line but didn't get nearly the same success: it only stayed on Broadway for 40 days, a very brief tenure. Yet, it was well played by the CHS cast and we spent a very nice evening. And Alex was on the tech team, from the creation of the set to the sound and light operations during the show.

Happy Spring to all!
PS: in Brooks, from top to bottom. Note that the grass already needs water, and rain came this afternoon, just in time! (Mt Hamilton is all covered with snow, for the fourth or fifth time this year!)