Staying the Course

A month ago, I took a look the progress I’d made towards my fitness goals this year, at the setbacks I’d suffered at the end of 2010, and asked, “Do I know I what I need to do to avoid a repeat of a year ago?” What I felt then was a mixture of confidence and anxiety. I was pretty sure I knew what I needed to do, but I was worried about my ability to execute on that knowledge. The impending Thanksgiving holiday, in particular, set me on edge, because I knew that’s where I started to get off track last year.

So how did I do? Here’s what my year-over-year comparison looked like on November 18.

Here’s what it looks like today.

Suffice it to say, I’m a lot less anxious now. Now I just have to avoid overconfidence and keep doing what it is that got me here.

Also, We Were All Wearing Silly Hats

This week I attended two holiday beer tastings: one at the Mercury Lounge last Sunday, and one yesterday hosted by one of the local homebrewing clubs. The former was moderately serious, with a beautiful printed program and several discussions about the history of the beers we were tasting. The latter — entitled the 12 Beers of Christmas — was distinctly less formal. One of the hosts, under the pseudonym of Irving Berlinerweisse, had re-written the lyrics to a number of Christmas carols around the topic of beer. So in between the “Brewer’s Dozen” (which turned out to be fifteen) beers we tasted, we sang songs like “It’s The Most Wonderful Time To Drink Beer”, “Let It Flow”, and “Simcoe the Red-Nosed Hop Cone.”

The only problem was that we ran out of songs in the first third of the event, so the organizers asked us to come up with new ones on the fly. My table’s contribution was a re-working of “I Have A Little Dreidel” that went like this:

Pitcher, pitcher, pitcher
A pitcher I will drink
And when I find it’s empty
Another one I think.

Sadly, we couldn’t come up with good enough lyrics for our favorite title, “Do You Taste What I Taste?”

On Stage Again

Last night was my first Friday performance with the Ventura Improv Company in a while, and it was great fun to get back to. We have a slightly different mix of experience levels in our Friday night shows than we do on Saturdays, and we use it as an opportunity for newer members of the troupe to work with our more experienced players. Despite doing this for almost five years now, it’s still hard for me to accept that I’m in the latter group. Last night, though, I felt like I held up my end of the bargain.

I’ll be performing again this month, on Friday, December 30th. That show will be with my long-form team, Instant Karma, as a build-up to our annual New Year’s Eve Gala. If you’re in Ventura that weekend, you should come out to one or both shows. It’s certain to be a lot of fun.

She Has A Point

Thanks to the same folks who brought us Oktubafest, tonight the Mercury Lounge was filled with sounds of Christmas carols… played in four-part harmony on a dozen tubas. It was simultaneously quirky and exactly right.

One point Gwen looked around and I said, “I could see you running a place like this.”

5K After Ten Miles

This morning, I rolled out of bed at half past five, drove down to Oxnard, and ran thirteen point one miles in one hour, forty-six minutes, thirty-six seconds.

On the one hand, I’m shocked by this. That works out to running a mile in eight minutes and eight seconds, repeated a baker’s dozen times. When I did my first 5K race in years back in May 2010, I would have been overjoyed to run at that pace. (I ran a 9:06 split in that race.) The notion of running a 5K that quicker after having already run ten miles at that pace was out of the question.

On the other hand, I’m not surprised I was able to do it. In October I ran a half-marathon in an hour and fifty minutes, and that was on a much hillier course than this one. I’ve been training since then, and I’ve seen my workout paces speed up. My only goal for this race was to break that time, so I just ran with the hour and fifty minute pacer for the first ten miles. At the ten mile marker, I felt like I could push it a little more, so I ran the remainder on my own and finished a few minutes ahead of him. Doing the math, I realize now that I ran that last 5K at a seven and and a half minute mile pace. That’s faster than I’ve run anything except this year’s Thankgiving 4-miler.

Back when I was doing triathlons — around 2004 — I encountered something on a tri mailing list that’s stuck with me ever since:

People tend to overestimate what they can do in a year, and underestimate what they can do in three.

At lunch after the race, Gwen asked me, “So, what’s next?” (She knows me too well.) I’ve had “run a marathon” on my list of things I want to do for a long time, but I’ve known that’s not something I could do in a year. In 2010, I got back into running. In 2011, I committed to making it a regular and important part of my routine. That makes 2012 year three. Maybe it’s time to finally go after it.

For now, though, it’s time to enjoy my underestimation of myself.