Never fear JD, I did get in one run along the Charles loop while in Boston. Jose and I ran on Thursday morning, from our hotel across the Mass Ave bridge, along the river, back over the Salt and Pepper bridge, and back to our hotel: this route. It was an absolutely beautiful run, one that I feel like I could do every day and never get bored. Jose hasn’t run in a while, so we walked half of the route, but it was still great. We passed dozens of other runners, and the feeling is contagious. It’s inspiring. For the rest of the weekend, every time we saw a runner (which happened often) I wanted to lace up my shoes and join them. I had planned to run again on Saturday morning before we left, but our whale watching trip left early enough that I didn’t have time to do it again.
I decided to do speedwork last night after all, and it absolutely wore me out. The schedule called for 6 x 800, but I felt like that was way too much of a jump from the 8 x 60-60 that I did last week. So I decided to compromise. I wanted to do speedwork, but not 800s, and I was tired to begin with, so I just bumped up a bit and did 10 x 60-60 with 1 mile warmup and 1 mile cooldown. I walked the 60 recovery, and did each 60 running at around 8:30 pace. The last couple repeats were tough, but I made it.
Here are some great running ads. The link was posted on the Bay Area Fit message boards. Caution that the first image is not entirely work-appropriate — but rest-assured that runners will find them all funny.
I booked my room at the Hilton for January 13, the night before the marathon. I think this is the farthest in advance that I have ever made a hotel reservation. Six months.
On to another sport.
I have only been paying peripheral attention to the Tour de France this year, but the past few days have been pretty eventful — and in a bad way. Big star Alexander Vinokourov and his team were ousted on Tuesday after he testing positive for an illegal blood transfusion. And yesterday after he won the stage in dramatic fashion, Michael Rasmussen — the guy who has been in the yellow jersey for more than a week and who was looking likely to win the entire race — was cut by his team and dismissed from the Tour for missing two drug tests this spring and not being honest to his team about his whereabouts. (Pro cyclists are required to tell their teams and drug testers where they will be at all times.) Those are the big names this year. In past years, other big names have been involved. Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis. Never-ending rumors about Lance Armstrong who, for the record, I believe to be clean simply because he has been tested so many times in so many places that it seems that he is either 1) clean or 2) incredibly good at hiding drug use, far better at hiding it than anyone else. I choose to believe the former.
I haven’t been able to solidify my opinion on drugs in sports yet, despite years of thought. One thing I do believe, however, is that the problem is no more rampant in cycling than in any other sport. People think that cycling has a worse drug problem than baseball, or football, or soccer, or basketball, or running… I don’t believe that. Cycling appears to have a worse drug problem only because they are the one professional sport that actually has a rigorous testing program. As fas as I know, professional cyclists are tested more regularly than any other professional athletes. They can be tested at any time of year. They can be tested in any location. At the Tour de France itself, you are tested if you win a stage. You are tested if you are wearing a jersey. You might be randomly tested even if you are at the back of the pack.
Cyclists are scrutinized for drug use more than any other sport, and that is why I think they are continually discovering drug use. Eventually one would think that the athletes would wisen up, realize that it is only a matter of time until they are caught, and stop doping. I hope that happens.
Yet to say that cycling has a bigger drug problem than, say, baseball, is kidding yourself. I believe baseball has a pretty big drug problem as well. They just have turned a blind eye to it over many, many years and continue to do so even now.
you know i think i might just get TWO nights at the Hilton. night before AND after. That way I can just hobble to my room and order in something fabulous for room service.
like champagne.