Run and Walk with Pride 4K 2010

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I’m freshly showered from today’s race, the Seattle Frontrunner‘s Run and Walk with Pride 2010! It was a lot of fun, and a really great turn out (500+ people!) This is my first time doing this event, and my first time around a running club (like the Frontrunners), and I was very much impressed. The diversity of people there was really awesome, LGBT and allies, kids and dogs and friends – and it was a gorgeous day. The money raised from the event goes to the Lifelong AIDS Alliance and Chicken Soup Brigade, both causes I can get behind.

This was my first chip-timed race, and my first 5K in a couple of months. OH WHAT A DIFFERENCE TRAINING MAKES! I ran the 4K, and came in at 22:51.1! I was second place in my age range (30-34), out of about 7 women in my age range. Women are pretty underrepresented at this event, but even still, I’m really proud of myself. Next weekend is the LIVESTRONG CHALLENGE! I can only hope I’ll do as well with the 5K. That means that this week is an easy week while I prepare to run my best.

I love running with a group of people. The run was beautiful, the people pretty non-competitive, and there was a spirit of fun that pervaded the event. I didn’t win any big prizes in the raffle, but I definitely came away feeling like I won something.

Maybe it’s just pride for my accomplishment. I don’t know. It just feels good.

Invincibility Through Endorphins

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I just came in from my most amazing run yet. I’m coasting an endorphin high after doing a short, fast run (only 15 min, but building up!) in my Five Fingers Sprints in a Seattle downpour. I went out, got completely drenched, ran the fastest that I could, and came back feeling triumphant. I threw my Sprints in the washer as that they were caked in mud on the top.

I’ve had Ani DiFranco in my head lately, and the song “Anticipate” from Live in Clip have running through my head. I have songs that go through my head while I run. Usually it has something about running or speed in the lyrics. I’m not sure what gets Anticipate in my head. Maybe it’s just the rhythm.

Here’s the breakdown of this run today:

  • Time: 00:15:02
  • Distance: 1.606 mi
  • Avg Pace: 09:19 min/mi
  • Avg HR: 171 bpm

If I can manage to keep this up for a full 5K, I might actually meet the challenge that was set up for me for my upcoming race (better than 30 min for 5K).

Now, to shower and get to my last ceramics class. 🙂

Coffee Shop Anarchists vs. Police

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Dan Savage posted to The Stranger’s Slog a snippet that led me to their sister-paper’s blo (Portland Mercury) about the Red and Black (Anarchist) coffee shop asking a uniformed officer to leave after he purchased his coffee, due to the fact he was uniformed. My personal feelings on the matter is that I don’t believe asking a uniformed cop to leave further’s their “cause” – why is the cop coming into that shop? Could he be a closet anarchist? Could he be a cop AGAINST police brutality? Could he be wanting to bridge the divide? Does kicking him out serve to continue the divide? Would letting him sit there, join in a dialog, perhaps make things better for all parties? I don’t have the answers, but I admit to wanting to be generous here. I know that this asks courage for people who are afraid (some reasonably so) to confront their enemy, which perhaps no one wants to do over a latte. Perhaps people shouldn’t have to confront discomfort/fears/assumptions/traumas. Then again, maybe that’s what it means to be out in the world, and a coffee shop is the best place to do it.

One of the commenters, Snagglepuss, had a few comments on the subject worth noting, here’s an excerpt of one:

Then, a startling thing happened, right around my 20th birthday. Instead of just blindly believing everything I read in the liner notes of Ebullition and Profane Existence releases, the sloganeering lyrics of my favorite bands, and the regurgitated and half-formed quasi-political gibberish my friends spouted, I picked up some books with different viewpoints, and (gasp!) read them…

You’ll never guess what happened. It dawned on me that my friends, and virtually everyone else I’d met in the crust-punk scene, were flat-out wrong about some very basic notions regarding political philosophy, humanity, and governance.

Not only were they wrong, they were utterly unable to consider a viewpoint that was different than their own (unless it was endorsed by one of their cool punk-rock heroes), and immediately hostile to ideas that contradicted their beliefs.

One of my peeves lately is that every corner of the Internet seems to have a willingness to step onto a soap box and proclaim right vs. wrong, often without the courage to sit, contemplate and consider the opposing viewpoint they’re rallying against on the oppositions terms: in their shoes, and within their world-view. The world is not sinister in the way that I think we may be inclined to believe it to be, but is rather a cluster of people operating on different classes of assumptions, with only a few with truly malevolent designs. It’s not to say there aren’t disastrous consequences of decisions made without malice, but until we can be generous and sit in the other person’s/group’s experience, we can’t bridge the divide to communicate in terms of peace.

Some may say that the opposition isn’t deserving of such generosity. Who says that we are deserving of theirs?

New Blisters and Minimalist Running

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Yesterday I went diving with my husband, a coworker of his, and that coworker’s significant other. Despite various traumatic events while diving (bull kelp ate one of my Apollo Bio-Fins!) I returned from the trip with a renewed gusto to try running my long run in my Vibram Five Fingers Sprints. Thanks to my husband’s coworker, I learned a new (to me) term: minimalist running. He actually was wearing another crazy model of minimalist shoes – though I can’t remember which ones they were for the life of me! It seems that there are people who barefoot run – really barefoot, and those who just run in the FiveFingers – and then others that run in other minimalist footwear.

It’s a whole, crazy world of running out there, let me tell you.

So that brings me to today’s run. I was achey, with my lungs still tired from all the hard work I did struggling against the bull kelp (IT’S ALIVE!), and I put off my run until the afternoon when I believed there to be a chance of sun. I further enticed myself by saying I would go without my regular cushy, supportive shoes, and go for my FiveFingers for my LONGEST RUN EVER without cushioning. My 40 minute run got me a lot of sweat and it looks like at least a couple of blisters. My legs felt all wobbly at the end of my run, my knees felt warm, and my big toes felt the worst of all of it. My trusty Garmin Forerunner 405CX gives me the following stats (among others):

  • Time: 40:15
  • Distance: 3.50 mi
  • Avg Pace: 11:30 min/mi
  • Avg HR: 141 bpm

Not bad, if I do say so myself. I started feeling the friction on my big toe about 20 minutes in, so the fact that I did that well is impressive (to me.)

I also have to state, for the record, that I have yet to really train on a flat surface. I end up doing small, but notable hills on every run. I can only hope this will make me a stronger runner come the LIVESTRONG Challenge.

The Speed of FiveFingers

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My ridiculous FiveFinger saga continued today as I broke my usual rule of running two days in a row, and broke out my Vibram Five Fingers Sprints for a short, fast run.

I couldn’t help myself. I’m beginning to think there’s secret crack in these shoes. What else could inspire such madness as to convince not just one reasonable person I know, but another to go out and run barefoot. I just couldn’t stand not doing a little run in them today. So, sure enough, I went out and did a 12:20 min run around my neighborhood. What was STELLAR about this run, was that my average heart rate was 140 bpm, and my average pace was 9:11 min/mi. Now, I’m not positive I could keep this up for a full 30 min to get me the 5K that I’m striving for in 2 weeks, however, I have to say that I’m pretty thrilled at the numbers for this morning.

Are these ridiculous shoes making me go faster?

Tomorrow I may give the same route/distance a try in my Brooks Adrenaline GTS 10. These shoes are the antithesis of my FiveFingers, in that these are super-supportive for people who pronate.

This is madness, I tell you – madness.