Cornucopia

Born to Run/Walk

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Okay, everyone. The race is on. Feel free to post comments, times, discussion, and links-to-pictures (if you’ve uploaded them to flickr or something). Or e-mail me pictures (kaimipono at gmail) and I’ll post them.

Good luck, everyone.

67 comments for “Born to Run/Walk”

  1. I’ll start with what will be one of the least brag-worthy times, so that everybody else can feel really superior by comparison:

    Team T&S: 3 mile leg, 75 minutes. I got up at 5:30 and was out walking at 5:45, and the clock was striking 7:00 as I walked back in. It’s still dark out there! I walked up and down one of the Avenues, from my house over to the edge of City Creek Canyon (Memory Grove), then east to the edge of City Cemetery and back. Whenever I came to a block that was relatively even (the Avenue is mostly flat, but the sidewalks are tilted by tree roots), I doubled back to walk it two or four more times to pick up some more blocks. Avenues blocks are 16 to the mile; I walked 48 blocks.

    The two most disturbing things I learned are: (1) The house that was burned by murderous vandal teens a couple of weeks ago (8 oxygen tanks inside exploded, and the elderly couple who lived there had to be pulled out by the fire department) still makes the entire block stink; and (2) I have more than enough ABBA on my iPod to last for a three mile walk.

  2. Awesome, Ardis. You can’t even walk a block without discovering part of the local history, can you? : )

    I learned nothing about local history on my run. And my ipod choices featured no ABBA at all. (I’ll have to remedy that, won’t I?)

    I did the 2.5 mi leg in 26:20. Not as good as I hoped, but not as bad as I feared. : )

    I’ll try to get a few pictures up.

  3. My running music for this one:

    Mary Chapin Carpenter, Passionate Kisses
    Modern English, Melt with you
    Queen, Another one bites the dust
    Joe Satriani, Summer Song
    The Cure, Just Like Heaven
    Springsteen, Born to run
    Offspring, Pretty fly (for a white guy)
    Meredith Brooks, [redacted]

    Next time around, I’ll add Dancing Queen to the mix. : )

  5. Kaimi,

    I’d send you the picture, but Runner’s World is very touchy about copyright issues, especially their Man of the Year cover story.

  6. For Team T/S:

    2 miles, 21:45

    Running tunes:

    Wonderwall (Oasis)
    Rock and Roll (Led Zep)
    Falling for the First Time (Barenaked Ladies)
    The Book I Write (Spoon)
    Speed of Sound (Coldplay)
    Eton Rifles (The Jam)
    Sweet Surrender (Sarah MacLachlan)

  7. I’ll be doing my running in the next 45 minutes on a treadmill. Unfortunately, my company does not allow cameras on site, so I will be unable to provide pictures of my scenic, indoor run. Since my iPod needs a new battery, I will be listening to XM Flight 26 as I do my best Chariots of Fire imitation.

  8. I ran the 3.5 mile leg in 42 minutes for Team Blog Segulla, and although it’s late September in Orlando Florida, it’s still surprisingly hot. I only remember the first and last songs of my run, since I spent most of the rest of the run trying to avoid heat stroke.

    “Do Your Best and Don’t Worry” (Morrissey)
    “Like It or Not” (Madonna)

    They have become my running anthems.

    Thanks for letting me be a part of the virtual marathon. It’s helping me get ready for a triathlon in October.

  13. Ultimate running song: Running with the Devil – Van Halen! Yeah, it’s not the fastest tempo, but it just fits too well (usually because I feel like running is of the devil, anyway!)
    Another song I like is from a more alternative band. The band name is Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. The song is Stop. They’re kinda noisy, but that song has a great tempo and the chorus starts with the words “We don’t know when to stop”! Perfect for keeping you going.

  15. Question,

    That was the theory. But I don’t intend to be too much of a stickler. We’re in this for fun, and it looks like the rules are being viewed as more like guidelines. Which isn’t so bad, really, as long as we’re all enjoying it.

    For instance, I did my 2.5 miles on a motor scooter.

    (Okay, just kidding about that last part . . . )

  17. I did my 3.5 mile leg this morning in 25:53. My wife confirmed the time, but she is easy to bribe. :)

    I’m still waiting for the M* crew to let me know their Friday times.

    Thanks for putting this on T&S and Kaimi, this is a lot of fun.

  18. Now I understand what happened to my MP3 player! For the first time, it went out on me, and I was unable to listen to Clapton, Nirvana, Tommy Roe, Strawberry Alarm Clock (those of you over 50 will know which song), Thelma Houston, Smokey Robinson, and Bon Jovi. Instead, I was stuck with the gym’s television, which was eeking out country western music by women in tight jeans and half-unbuttoned denim shirts. I believe that because I have become a promiscuous blogger, not really committing to any one blog, this was God’s way of punishing me. I didn’t even remember that THIS was the day T&S really needed me.

  19. Ardis,

    I make sure to keep the Word of Wisdom by drinking lots of mild barley drinks. Therefore, I can run and not be weary. :)

    (You must do the same. After all, you walked, and didn’t faint.)

    Margaret,

    You are truly the Rhiannon of the bloggernacle. (Is there any Fleetwood on that MP3 of yours?) I see no need to punish you for blog promiscuity. I kinda enjoy seeing you take to the sky like a bird in flight. Some people weren’t meant to be confined to one blog alone.

    By the way, don’t forget that — to their great credit — Clapton and Bon Jovi and Nirvana (and so on) had no shortage of interaction with women in tight jeans and half-unbuttoned shirts, themselves. This just shows: Some may like Clapton and some country-western, but tight jeans (on the right person!) seem to have universal appeal.

  20. There was a time when I could do a 12:28 two mile. What did I churn out today?

    2 miles in 24:38

    I’m so ashamed. But I didn’t have a heart attack and die, so that’s good.

    Actually, I feel okay and will probably do the 4.5 in the early morning tomorrow and the final 2 miles that evening. I predict a 58:30 for the long run and under 24:00 for the short. (Those times are in minutes, not hours.)

    I have yet to hear from the rest of my team — two in Idaho, one in Maryland, and one here in Maine, but I’m sure they are all setting exemplary times.

    Since teams with a weak link such as I, have no hope of winning, could there also be a compiling of times of the various legs? That way a fleet runner on a not so fleet team could have a chance at glory by completing a particular leg the fastest. Just a thought.

  21. Kaimi, we may be breaking the rules in two ways: we will probably have six runners, and some of us are running on treadmills. We figured this is just for fun anyway.

  23. My time was 22:50 for 2.5 miles, btw. My preference would be to run outside, but the only free time I have to workout is on my lunch hour at work.

    As my penance for my sin of running on the treadmill, I did interval training after my run. I started at a 15% incline walking for 1 minute at a 3mph pace and running for 1 minute at a 5mph pace. Fun stuff!

  24. “half-unbuttoned denim shirts”

    Look at it the other way, Margaret. Their denim shirts were half-buttoned. : )

  25. Go M*! Yay team!

    Though I’m not participating today, let me heartily congratulate everyone who did better than 4mph (15 minute mile) — that’s faster than I run under the very best of circumstances; I had Navy recruiters cheering when I finally got my running mile below 20 minutes in high school. For comparison, when I’m really focused on it and have been walking nearly every day for about a month, I can get my walking mile right around 13 minutes.

    So take comfort: no matter how badly you did or will do, I guarantee every one of you I would have done worse. Unless you like, took a nap in the middle of your run, or something.

  28. T&S: 1.5 mile walk, 35 stinkin’ minutes. But I did it … in the rain, and the dang cold wind that gave me a brainfreeze just as if I’d eaten ice cream, and with my heavy computer bag over my shoulder. Eric Clapton, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Dan Fogelberg, and more embarrassing music from the ’70s.

  31. Okay checking in to report the first of my two legs (it’s a lot easier to run with both): .7 miles in about 7 minutes (analog watch, no second hand).

    Time for the 1.7 mi leg and photos to come. No ipod, unfortunately!

  32. Three things:

    1. I heard from my Idaho teams members (my pregnant daughter, Sofie, and her husband, David) who say:

    “[Dave’s] sister Kathy ran 1.5 miles last night in 15 minutes. Would it be okay to add her to the team? Two pregnant ladies = 1 runner?”

    I told her to go ahead and add Kathy to our team. Love that preggie math.

    2. I forgot to shut my stop watch off, so a glance at my wrist tells me I’m at over ten hours for the 4.5 mile. That, of course, is not true. It just it felt like ten hours.

    3. I’ve been reading people’s music lists — mine includes The Juliet Letters from Elvis Costello and The Brodsky Quartet, plus What If Mozart Wrote “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by the Hampton Quartet. That’s the two albums that happen to be on my little mp3 player so that’s what I went with. The Hampton stuff was very runnable.

    4. (Okay, four things.) Equally reportable to music should be what people used for fuel. As I ran, I snacked on almond butter cookies, tap water in a Perrier bottle, and a Kit Kat bar. Mmmm.

  34. Good idea, John.

    I didn’t snack as I ran. I usually can’t do that without getting distracted. But my wife drove along with the kids, and Son2 took pictures, and Daughter held out a water bottle for me every little while (half mile or so). So I had frequent water breaks. It was a lot of fun.

    I was operating on breakfast — yogurt raisins and a granola bar. I had a light breakfast because we had a big dinner last night — we went out to eat at a Southern cuisine restaurant, and had fried chicken and meatloaf and hush puppies and black-eyes peas and sweet potato pie.

    After running, and drinking a lot of water, I took the kids to 7-11, and got a slurpie, to cool down some more. And I’ve been munching on animal crackers since, and a few hard-boiled eggs.

  35. Being a bicycler, I can’t really comment on whatever it is that leads some people to subject the soles of their feet to unecessary damage. But the music I’ll weigh in on.

    1) Kathryn listens to Led Zeppelin, Spoon, and The Jam. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: this woman is one hip mama.

    2) I have no idea why Ardis feels any embarrassment over ABBA. It’s long since been made clear to every discerning listener that ABBA managed to tap into some vein of pure camp/pop perfection. Barry Manilow (who is no slouch as a songmeister) would have killed to have been able to record a bit of cheese as good as “Does Your Mother Know?”

    3) Then again, Ardis, while Clapton is, as they say, God, and CCR is awesome, I don’t know what I can do about Dan Fogelburp.

    4) John, I’m so impressed and happy to meet another owner of the Juliet Letters. I think that brings the total number of copies of that album sold wordwide to around 16.

  36. Dan Fogelburp. Ha!

    Russell, I’ve never met another soul who’s even heard of the Juliet Letters. We should contact the other 14 purchasers and form a club.

    And as for Abba, they are abbasolutely the bee’s proverbial knees.

    Kaimi,

    I’m fearful the Exceedingly Curious team may register a FTF or is it DNF? I think we may be a five mile leg short, and I’m way too sore to go do it tonight. Any way we can extend this race through Monday? No, wait, forget that. Any way I can get credit for a five-miler by soaking in a hot tub of water for an hour?

  37. I listened to the B-52s, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skyrnyrd and the Rolling Stones, as well as the old standbys, the themes from “Chariots of Fire” and “Rocky” on my Ipod his morning. Just as I was finished my five-mile leg, “Freebird” was ending. That made for an exciting sprint. Yes, my music tells you a lot about my age.

  39. Warm up:
    My Chemical Romance – Welcome to the Black Parade
    Deep Blue Something – Breakfast at Tiffany’s

    Running:
    Chumbawamba – Tubthumping
    Ned’s Atomic Dustbin – Saturday Night
    The Killers – Mr. Brightside
    Hoku – Perfect Day
    All-American Rejects – Dirty Little Secret
    Green Day – Basket Case
    Smash Mouth – All Star
    Gin Blossoms – Allison Road
    EMF- Unbelieveable
    Third Eye Blind – Semi-Charmed Life
    Hole – Celebrity Skin
    Billy Idol – Dancing With Myself
    The Doobie Brothers – China Grove
    Wanderlust – I Walked
    Bow Wow Wow – I Want Candy

    Cool down:
    The Killers – All These Things that I’ve Done.

  40. Great photos, Kaimi. Son2 has a calling.

    It’s official. We’re a five miler short. Woe is I.

    Pardon a comment high-jack, but Russell, did you know Rhino issued a bonus disc to the Juliet Letters? I didn’t. See a play list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Juliet_Letters

    If you have this CD, please email me at john (at) exceedinglycurious (dot) com.

    Now back to your regularly scheduled race comments.

  43. No polishing here–though perhaps some blisters. I eeked out 2.0 miles in 19:50 for the M* Athletic Department.

  44. Heard from my last team member who said:

    “Just got in from jogging. Because I’m me, I forgot to check and see what time it was when I left. I’m guessing 7ish, so about an hour, give or take.”

    She ran the 1.5 and 2.5, so I divided the hour between the two.

    With that, here are the final results for team Exceedingly Curious, miserable lot that we are:

    4.5 mi — 1:07:21
    2 mi — 29:28
    3 mi — 32:33
    1.5 mi — 22:00
    2.5 mi — 38:00
    1.5 mi — 15:00
    3.5 mi — 28:07
    0.7 mi — 8:55
    2 mi — 37:32
    5 mi — Not run

    Which gives us a total of 4:38:56 for 21.2 miles
    This, I think, would be an average pace per mile of around 13:09.

    We did have two pregnant women on our team, but their times actually helped our average. Perhaps the rest of us (particularly me) should consider training next time.

    Nonetheless, thanks team. We gave it a go.
    And thanks Kaimi for setting this up. It was fun.

  47. Tracy, no, we’re just waiting for photos from the remaining slackers…I did 3.5 in 32 minutes (in my defense, they were trail miles…) and 5 in 44:45.

  50. I shuffled my creaky bones through the five-mile leg in a quaaludicrous 74:40. I did at least manage to jog the whole way, except when trying not to scare the deer, and I took a smattering of pix to which I’ll post links tomorrow. Sorry about the slow posting; I’ve been away from the internet most of the weekend.

  51. Team Segullah\’s report:

    Members:
    Kathryn Soper
    Justine Dorton
    Sharlee Glenn
    Heather Herrick
    Andrea Rediske

    Legs:

    4.5 mi: 49:48
    .7 mi: 6:10
    5 mi: 51:24
    2 mi: 21:45
    3 mi: 34:00
    1.5 mi: 13:54
    2.5 mi: 27:00
    3.5 mi: 42:00
    2 mi: 20.57
    1.5 mi: 14:48

    Total time:
    4 h. 11 min. 56 sec.

  52. Nicely done, M* and Segullah. Glad to have you both in the run. It looks like a difference of just three minutes between you — nice.

    Hmm, I need to get out a calculator and add up T&S times. I think the M* folks might have slightly edged us.

    Let’s see, what else?

    BCC,

    We’re still waiting. Slackers.

    Kristine,

    You did 3.5 in 32 minutes and 5 in 44:45? Dang. Remind me not to tick you off — because clearly, you can outrun me.

    BIV,

    Nice run, and fun slides. Um, are you the sole representative of team ZD? I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

    John,

    I think we can probably extrapolate, or something. :)

    Russell,

    Fogelburp? Sheesh. Do you realize how long he’s been around? Longer than there’s been Russell in the Arben, that’s how long. :P

    Kim,

    Those are some cool pictures. You’ve got a nice walking commute there.

    Lisa,

    We await word from you, time-traveling one.

    Ann,

    Damn straight. :)

  53. Other updates:

    1. Rosalynde’s run pic is up, at http://timesandseasons.org/wp-content/joggernacle.JPG /

    2. Nate writes in: “I did my 3.5 miles yesterday in 34 minutes according to the iPod pedometer.”

    3. There’s some fun post-run discussion going on, at:

    Segullah: http://www.segullah.org/small-epiphanies/pats-on-the-back
    Exceedingly Curious: http://exceedinglycurious.com/2007/09/race-results/
    M*: http://millennialstar.org/index.php/2007/09/25/reminder_marathon_friday_and_saturday (comments)

  54. Thanks, Kaimi. I used to bike it. Now I just take the bus. It was a nice walk though. I could’ve had a better item if I took the shorter rout and not taken any pictures. Meh.

    Anyhow, our total time was 06:13:00. Our legs were as follows:

    1. 4.5 mi, 01:52:00
    2. 2 mi, 00:24:00
    3. 3 mi, 00:42:18
    4. 1.5 mi, combined with above
    5. 2.5 mi, 00:24:42
    6. 1.5 mi, 00:52:00
    7. 3.5 mi, combined with above
    8. 0.7 mi, 00:46:00
    9. 2 mi, combined with above
    10. 5 mi, 01:12:00

  57. Belated but moving! I clocked my first leg of 2.5 miles at 27 minutes (obviously walking) and learned the following:
    1. there’s a reason I used to stretch before working out.
    2. rain is cold

    The nano warmed me up with an eclectic mix from:
    “Going Once” – ani difranco
    “Tom Dooley” – Utah Phillips
    “Hard Rain” – Bob Dylan
    “Me in Honey” – R.E.M.
    “Iowa” – Dar Williams
    Random free jazz (not so good for keeping rhythm)
    “Halley Came to Jackson” – Mary Chapin Carpenter

  58. *Cough.*

    Kaimi, #2: “I did the 2.5 mi leg in 26:20. ”

    Janet, #57: “I clocked my first leg of 2.5 miles at 27 minutes (obviously walking) . . .”

    Harrumph.

    Well, my 26:20 was not obviously walking. There was a small amount of walking involved, but it was mostly run.

    I guess that 40 seconds makes all the difference. : P

  59. Kaimi–maybe I messed up the pedometer? Because I thought I’d gone about a mile, looked down at the thing, and it said “1.7”. At which point I did a brief little dance on the street corner, rejoicing that years of fertility drugs hadn’t entirely sapped my former athletic prowess.But it’s possible that rather than me possessing bionic speed, I’m just a stupid luddite who cannot correctly operate a gadget with exactly three buttons. I’ll take two pedometers on the next leg and see if they match up (they better–I don’t want to redo my first one!).

  60. …or heck, I could just use Ardis’ blocks-per-mile calculations from the first comment! Except I was in the canyon for the last bit…

  62. Okay, a couple more times for Team FMH (go team!):

    1.5 miles: 20:26
    2 miles: 27:16

    In the interest of full disclosure (time bending aside), you should know that I did this while pushing Marigold in a stroller and through some roadwork construction. The construction workers were very nice in stopping traffic for me (not that they needed to since I am all too capable of stopping traffic on my own) and smiling/waving at Marigold (the true traffic-stopper).

    Also, as I was using a watch and city streets (calculating the distance via MapQuest), my actual time/distance ratio is 81.5 minutes for 5.98 miles, and I extrapolated my times out of that. (That counts, right?) Of course, math was never my best subject, so anybody who\’s really bored can feel free to double check.

  63. Artemis, you are the undoubted leader within the stroller-pushing, time-bending, traffic-stopping, ratio-calculating category.

    As for extrapolation, I’m disappointed I didn’t think of that myself. I should have just run a half mile, and extrapolated the rest. :P

  65. Just wanted to say that BIV is not the only member of the ZD team — she’s just more on top of things than the rest of us. I walked the 4.5 mile leg in 1:04 (no stop watch, so no seconds). I know Lynnette finished both of her legs, but I’ll have to look up the times. There’s some time-bending going on as well, and I think the other legs will get done this weekend.

  66. If all the other teams get to take their sweet time, does that mean we can all rerun our legs for a faster time? Sounds fair.

  67. Kathryn,

    I’m hearing recurring rumors that some teams are about to complete their run. I don’t want to close it just yet.

    It does appear that M* is currently in the lead. And we’ll eventually have to actually close this, won’t we? Hint, hint, Team BCC.

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