The Connection Runners

MCM Monday #5: Brought to You by David Bowie

When it comes to this update, I'm later than a high school sophomore turning in the final draft of an essay.

At least I have a for-real excuse: Our computer was broken. I can have my mom text you an excuse.

Well, all we need is a new battery, which we're in the process of purchasing (the hubs will gladly return the $129 one to the Apple store as soon as he hones in on a cheaper, made-by-some-poor-foreign-orphan one via Amazon). Meanwhile, I thought the Mac wouldn't work without a battery at all, but I just got frisky now and plugged it directly into the wall and WAM! It works.

Pointless story aside, on with the Marine Corps show.

Week 5 Recap
Monday: 4 mi @ 9:47 (w/stroller)
Tuesday: off
Wednesday: 3.64 mi @ ?? (treadmill... see below for the tale)
Thursday: 4 mi @ 9:17
Friday: 12 mi @9:55
Saturday: off
Sunday: off

Week 5 Notes
Interesting things happened last week.

#1 Interesting Thing: Wednesday's speedwork (1 warm-up, 3x1 @ 8:25 w/ 800 recovery, 1 cool down) was going so totally effing awesome. After dropping C off at the daycare center, I warmed up, hit the first two intervals no problem and then... heard my name blaring over the gym loudspeaker. Hoping for a mere poop explosion, I stopped the treadmill at the beginning of a recovery jog, crossed my fingers, prayed to Allah and Zeus and Confucious, and went to the Kids' Quarters only to be presented with a red-faced, screaming baby girl instead.

She was sadder than Osama Bin Laden was when he found out Whitney Houston wouldn't entertain him in private show, so we went home, speedwork be damned.

#2 Interesting Thing: After the speedwork fail, I managed to pull out a quick easy run on Thursday and a 12-mile LSD Friday while we were on vacation. I don't normally work out while on vacation, but I wanted to salvage the week, so I ran early Friday, before any of our friends had time to drink beer without me. Even though I had to do about 17 laps in the rain around the small Michigan towns of Saugatuck and Douglas, I didn't die, and it was ok.

Week 5 Marathon Musing: Ch-ch-CHANGES
Nothing makes me happier than an androgynous pop singer with a gingery mullet. Well, except for the time I made a new training plan that allows me to get by with four runs a week instead of five.

Remember that Runner's World plan I showed you in Week 1 of MCM training? Yeah, that's gone. Besides requiring five runs a week, which I could never fit in anyway, I kept looking ahead to the hell weeks where I'd be theoretically running 50 miles, with 20 of those miles coming from two 10-mile weekday runs. (I just threw up in my mouth a little.)

Unless David Bowie's going to use his spaceman powers to give me more free hours, there's no way in Going-Back-To-Work-And-Raising-A-Spawn Hell I'm going to have time for business like that.

So I SmartCoached a new plan, one that maxes out at 34 miles a week with no weekday run going longer than seven miles. Not sure if this will get me to PRVille, but at this point I'll be happy just to detour around DNSVille.

With a whole week behind me, I already feel better about the new plan. I no longer have to put sad faces and X's over the runs I've missed because I haven't missed any. Yet.

Something I do miss? Flight of the Conchords. They ask Bowie lots of important questions in this song, like: "Do you have one really freaky spacesuit, man? Or do you have several ch-ch-changes?"

Looks like I definitely need more than one freaky spacesuit if I'm going to make it through the next 10.5 weeks of marathon training.

-When do you know it's time for a ch-ch-change in your training routine?