Spring spree

Spree: a period of unrestrained self-indulgence...

After welcoming Spring with a poem last week, I'm enjoying this extended period without a race: 3 weeks between Way Too Cool and American River, what a treat! Two weeks after AR will be RA (Ruth Anderson), then Miwok two weeks later, then only one week before QuickSilver, which I will run for the first time this year. This is the fun of racing in the Grand Prix, it never stops! Incidentally, no race also means no race report, and shorter blog posts... ;-)

In addition, I don't have any business trip scheduled anymore, courtesy of IBM's travel policy. That gives me more time to work (sic!), train and, more importantly, more time spent with the family. Running is only my second job and work therefore takes precedence on running. As a matter of fact, since the IBM acquisition, very early conference calls prevent me from training as much as I want in the morning, and additional workload extends the working hours at night, shortening my sleep time. I really need to keep all that under control this week, before next Saturday 50-mile race.

This morning I ran at Rancho San Antonio. It has been a while since I drove to this park, where I probably ran more than 2,000 miles, and I had forgotten that parking was such an issue on Saturday and Sunday mornings. I had to park almost 1 mile from the entrance. There was an amazing number of hikers on the trail in this sunny and hot morning and many of them were surprised to see me running a second lap after I passed them on my first PG&E-Upper High Meadow-Rogue loop. 2:26 for 20 miles and 2,800 feet elevation, that was a good work out. When I think that one lap felt like a huge achievement just 10 years ago, in 1999, and that two laps now became a simple training run now, I definitely run "Farther, Faster!"
When you hear spree, you think "shopping spree," right? And indeed, shopping we did this afternoon at Fleet Feet in Aptos. If you recall, I won the 2nd place in Montrail Ultra Cup in 2007 and the prize was a $1,000 gift card from Fleet Feet. The store owner, Tom, is an ultra runner himself and he was surely happy to see the whole family enter his store to shop for this significant amount! Tom and his staff are very knowledgeable and I highly recommend their advice for shoe selection (they carry the best Brooks models, but other brands as well, to fit every one's "fleet feet"). And next time you visit, look at the wall, you may see my picture hanging up there! (Store picture from Tom's blog)
We had to drive back for Max and Alex' musical at CHS, but we could manage to fit in one hour at the Seacliff State Beach to enjoy the wonderful weather. The wind made the air chilly, not to mention the water was cold of course, contrasting with the 75+ degrees we experienced in the Bay Area today. Heat training is around the corner, I like that!
What a contrasting weather: one week ago, runners where racing on muddy and windy trails around Mt Diablo, whose top was covered with snow. Today, they were suffering from heat at Lake Sonoma 50-mile. Indeed, Spring is here, enjoy some Spring spree!

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!)