Let the Taper Begin

Thursday I made it out for the speed workout I was so set on doing, 4 x 3min x 3min. A bit nippy, at 42 or so degrees, but there were still many bundled up people (except for one idiot running in just shorts, no shirt) getting in their miles. I heard a lot of bits of conversations that involved the phrase "the marathon next weekend" so I think a lot of people were getting in one of their final runs.

A Saturday we had the final HoustonFIT run, 6.5 miles. I started out with Jake, and as we discussed Hood to Coast, Christmas stories, and some of Jake's favorite Irish jokes*, I ended up running most of the whole way with him. I had wanted to run fairly fast, and as Jake is a bit faster than me, it was a good pairing; 6.5 miles in 1:00:20, or about 9:16 min/mile.

I think I win run on Monday and Wednesday, and then the eating of pasta begins with pasta parties on Thursday and Friday. At some point I will begin to ween myself onto a healthy diet of Advil, so as to proactively drive any swelling out of the joints. Time to be lazy!

The book I referenced in my last post sprinkled quotes throughout, and I thought many were pretty interesting; here's a sample:

• "The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet." William Gibson, author of Neuromancer
• "There are many thing about which a wise man might wish to be ignorant." Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate." Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist
• "By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day." Robert Frost
• "The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain." Colin Wilson, British author of The Outsider
• "Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure." Thomas Watson, founder of IBM
• "There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do." Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes
• "Adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for idea." Paula Poundstone

*Here's one of Jake's jokes. It centers around folks from Cork, Ireland, which Jake claimed is much akin to being from Arkansas.

The guy from Cork went into the pharmacy and said he needed some bottom deodorant. The pharmacist said he wasn't aware of such a thing as a bottom deodorant, but if he could bring the package in, he could get it for him. So the guy from Cork went home and came back with the container of bottom deodorant. After giving it the pharmacist, the pharmacist exclaimed that it was a normal, ordinary tube of underarm deodorant. The guy from Cork said, no, no, no, read the back; "to use, push up bottom".