Vocal Demorol

Seems like I've been doing nothing other than sign up for runs lately; here's the rundown:

• Hood to Coast - This day long endurance test pits teams of 8 to 12 runners against one another in a quest to get from Mount Hood to the Pacific coast. If we get lucky, our team will be selected for the next installment; August 2008.
• Houston Half Marathon - Yep, I'm going to run it! I won't get my long run in this weekend without, and hey, there's a medal!
• 500 Festival Mini Marathon - This Indianapolis run is the largest half (aka, mini) in the nation, and eighth largest run in the country. I have it on good authority that this early May event is really fun, and as it fills up quickly, I decided to go ahead a book my spot.

Saturday's run with HoustonFIT went OK; 8.5 miles a bit over 10 min/mile. Come Monday morning, I decided to start what will hopefully be a tradition; making it out to the Luke's Locker Bagel Run (from now on known as Felix's Bagel Run; I'll eat their bagels, but still don't care to advertise for them too much). 3.2 miles in about 31:30 min on that muggy morning. I think running Monday morning actually makes good sense for me, as it allows sufficient recovery time from Satuday, and is a full day and a half away from my traditionally Tuesday night run. Speaking of which, I ran four miles with Jon and Lynette at Memorial tonight. The great weather (60 degrees and clear) led to a good pace of a touch over 9:30 min/mile.

One head scratcher over these three runs is my heart; it seems to be beating faster than normal (though I don't mean to complain; 31 years and it's still putt-putt'n along). It's probably just some kind of aberration as I'm getting back into running after the Chicago break. I'm looking forward to seeing how the old ticker behaves in the cold weather.

On the health front, I think my heel is, well, healing nicely. For about 10 days after Chicago I rested it with no benefit. In ten days of of using the sock, while simultaneously returning to running, my heel seems to have made remarkable strides (my heel made strides, is that another pun?). I think the hype may be true; the sock really does help with heel and Achilles injuries! Continued nightly socking, along with my shoe new inserts, will hopefully have me fully healthy and able to run without worrying about the nagging foot and hamstring problems that plagued me throughout the Summer.

My extra-curricular post of the day is something I spent about three hours on this last weekend; Bob Ross. Hopefully you know Bob Ross was the afro wearing king of PBS painters, and even though he passed away in 1995, Bob is still something of a cultural icon. I had a brief stint as a painter when a wee lad (my mother dug up "the painting" and framed it a few years ago, I'll have to take a pic over T'Giving), but even if I hadn't been so, I'd still be amazed at how Bobby R. can slap out a nature scene in less than 30 minutes! More importantly, the man could end war and global aggression if everyone watched his videos. As this article put it, his voice "is compared to Demorol"; if you listen to this man talk and don't get catatonic, you need to lay off the Red Bull!