Kara Sevda

Thanks guys. More good news: 30min on a trainer is much easier than 2hr15min. Easy spin while watching some Tour Down Under coverage during a homework break.

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Since this blog has been pretty lacking in the personality department of late, brief life update:
I have my first interpreting gig tonight. Unpaid, but should be good experience. I'm admittedly getting more nervous with every passing hour; I just hope my hands aren't shaking by the time it starts.

Just catching up Mike. Glad the corner is turning.

Thanks for stopping in Alex. The corner continues to turn.

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46min today with a negative split of ~4min (most was due to the warm-up). Total of 5.25 miles, so pace was just sub-9. Best part? No pain again. Loved it. Looks like things are really picking up.

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A little bit about last night: simultaneous interpreting (interpreting while the original message is still being conveyed, as opposed to consecutive interpretation that works in segments) for an hour and a half with no breaks = difficult. But a great first experience. Looking forward to doing it again.

Great news on the run. But a silly question about an extended signing session: do your hands cramp up?

I was at a session the other night where there was an ASL interpreter trying to keep pace with a school principal. I can't imagine the concentration it'd take to be able to keep up with what they're saying. Do you translate everything verbatim, or paraphrase a bit?

Mark - Actually, my hands didn't cramp or fatigue much. They got sloppy, but I think that was more due to my mental fatigue. After about an hour, my brain was seriously mush. That, and I forgot to bring in my water, so my mouth was becoming dry... Hey, a learning experience.

What I did last night was technically closer to transliteration, which is converting one modality of a language to another modality of the same (or similar enough) language. Meaning I was changing spoken English to something very close to signed English. This is because the client informed me that she was raised oral (without ASL; speech-based) and loved books, so her understanding of signed language is very heavily influenced by English linguistics.

Honestly, I think that was more difficult for me than actual English-ASL interpretation would've been, and I was forced to paraphrase quite a bit. Had I been interpreting to ASL, I think those paraphrasing moments would've come at times when entire concepts could be portrayed through the spatial nature of ASL in just one sign, instead of the 4 or 5 signs it took to explain the concept in English. So, to answer, a little of both. I tried to hold onto the words of the speaker as much as possible, but when the speaker's words were unclear, I would then paraphrase the concept in a more clear way.

Little change of plans, because flexibility is what this training program is all about.

Brother texted me last night and asked if I wanted to do a 2.5hr hike near Lake Berryessa. "Can we run part of it?" "Uh, dude, it's like stairs or super steep the entire time."

Well, he wasn't lying about that. There were some built-into-the-hillside stairs for long stretches, and there's a good mile at around 15-20%. But 2.5hrs was his previous times when (in his words) he hiked with women. We got it done in 1.5hrs. Which he immediately came home and told his girlfriend. See, the sweetness is genetic!

Overall, an enjoyable late morning jaunt to cap off the last of my 10-day weeks and start in on some more structured rest days.

Sounds like fun with your brother! I am glad my little 2 yr old keeps learning more ASL. She has taught our extended family quite a few signs.

Julie - I forget; she's not Deaf, right? Just a baby-sign thing? Watching Aileen's nephew (~1yr) sign "MORE" while saying "more" or "mas" (his parents are bilingual) convinced me to teach my future kids ASL from birth. So cute.

EDIT: Totally misread that "she" as "he" the first time around. Whoopsies.

She's not deaf, no. We started out with baby signs but she's always been a really good communicator so now it's more trying to get her a second language than for her own communication needs. She uses all sorts of fun words like discombobulated and soporific (not in ASL!) (she has 2 nerdy parents).

Mike - I tried to answer your Boston training question in my blog.

Thanks, Michele! I'm thinking that schedule would be pretty ambitious for me right now. Maybe I'll have to start watching your weekly training posts and just be a week behind while you build up your miles.

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Four days of running coming up this week, starting with ~40min today before class. I'm thinking that instead of blocking tomorrow's long bike (tacking on 30min running at the end), I'll just run Wed/Thurs and then Sat with cycling on Tues and Fri.

And a fun little culinary note: I finally cooked up some of that lamb my friend gave me before winter break. Just a little Worce sauce, garlic, salt and pepper... I had been warned that lamb is very sweet, but this wasn't. I think it was because it was grass-fed its entire life as opposed to pumped up with sweet cob. To be honest, it kind of tasted like a steak. But hey, I didn't get sick from it!

Rosemary is good on lamb. Try that next time.

mul21 wrote:Rosemary is good on lamb. Try that next time.

Had that thought; decided to remain faithful to the recipe she gave me.

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Ran 40min/close to 5mi today. Wasn't expecting to be that quick, but I was on surface streets (flat!) and just breezed through the run. Felt really good. I'm getting a bit more confident about Boston now. Woo!

Hey Mike, its been a while. Glad to see you're doing well and training is coming along! Keep up the good work and keep enjoying it!

Hey Neil, thanks for stopping in. Glad to see you're still alive and kickin'. You should hang out on this site a bit more, what do you say?

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In the spirit of smooth transitions and repeating thematic elements, let's talk about enjoying things.
I have to admit that I wasn't exactly... stoked... to be heading out for a 2.5-3hr ride this morning. I don't know why; my heart just wasn't completely into it.
Still, I followed "the plan," which basically meant I didn't try to hammer through the beginning of the ride so the end would come sooner. That might work with rides/runs based on distance - though it's still kind of stupid - but with time, it would serve no purpose other than to kill me pretty early on. So I cruised out for the first half hour at a very, very easy effort level.

Somewhere in that half hour, I started to feel a bit better about the ride - I was turning over a smooth cadence, cruising along at a nice pace, feeling totally in sync with the bike. By the time I hit the dam at Folsom Lake, I was almost really enjoying myself. Then I turned onto the American River bike path and things just got that much better. I'd never ridden on the path before - at least not in this area - and that's something I'm now kicking myself for. The scenery went from huge, wide open views of the canyon and river below to a mossy forest to Lake Natoma, which is much more beautiful than the picture below might suggest...



I knew the way back was going to be a substantial bit longer than the way out - net elevation loss of ~1100' in that first 1:15. The way back was indeed longer, but again I felt solid throughout it, and the checkpoints I had set for myself came much faster than expected.
By the time I hit the big hill (~7-8% for a mile with the middle of that being an extended 10% climb) I was just starting to feel a bit fuzzy, so I held myself over with thoughts of a big-ass chai latte when I finished. Did a little spin around the neighborhood to flush the legs from the climb and had a dog chase me. Fortunately, s/he was friendly and just curious. I said hello and pulled off the road while his/her owner caught up and took him/her back.

And yes, that chai was delicious. I even brought my own espresso + protein powder (reminded myself of K. Baldo's "you know you're an endurance athlete when...") to mix with my chai.

Good, good day.

Mike MacLellan wrote:Thanks, Michele! I'm thinking that schedule would be pretty ambitious for me right now. Maybe I'll have to start watching your weekly training posts and just be a week behind while you build up your miles.

Just wanted you to know that I ran Boston 2009 on very little mileage as I was coming off a late fall injury. I ran well at St. George (10/1) but carried it too far. I basically ran "0" miles from mid-November until the end of December. Like you, I biked (indoors here) and then swam and ran in the pool. I ran 16 miles in January, 94 miles in February, and 140 miles in March with my highest mileage week being 35 miles. My long runs looked like this: 10/12/11/26.2/13/10/15/13.1/19/8. That "26.2" was the Myrtle Beach Marathon which I ran at an easy 9:15 pace and then I took a week off, and I even took a week off skiing in early March. My goal for Boston was to simply re-qualify or run "3:59:59" and I ran 3:59:29. (I ran 3:36 at St. George and I run comfortably in the 3:40-3:45 range most of the time). So, it can be done. I ran 3-5 days per week at the most through that cycle and kept up the swimming and weight work.

I know I have a "longer" years worth of base, but I'm 2x your age and don't have half of your ability. Just be smart and you'll get there.

Keep up the good work and the good attitude - it will pay off in spades.

Michele - Thanks for those details. Definitely helpful. Since all I'm trying to do this year in Boston is:
C goal: complete without walking;
B goal: complete smiling;
A goal: 3:30 (with my friend);
it's good to know that it looks like all of these can be completed with the 12 weeks I have. It's taking a lot of discipline to force myself not to just keep running when I feel good at the end of a workout, which I'm taking as a good sign.
I think I will try a long run ramp up similar to that, minus the marathon thrown in there, and with the longest being a 20-miler (10 @ MP+45, 10 @ MP).
I am planning, however, a good 3-5hr hike (with some running thrown in there) next Tuesday in lieu of the bike ride. I think having the time on feet will give me the same confidence an early-season, easy/long 20-miler would.

Mmmmm, sounds like an awesome bike ride, love the picture. I've been considering getting a bike when the spring hits around here. Any suggestions for good cheapish road bikes?

And yeah, got more time on my hands these days so I should be back on the site more often

The American River Trail is fantastic. I'm glad you enjoyed the ride!

Keep at it. This cross-training will pay big benefits when it's time for Boston.

Neil - I'd check out performancebike.com. They have some good entry-level road setups.

Mark - Indeed it is. And I'm hoping you're right...

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30min recovery + 5x 10sec hill sprints today. The sprints really helped out with my joint issues and imbalances last time around, so I'm hoping that they'll help out this time around, too. Short core workout after the run.

Things looking up Mike - I've never ridden on a 1+ mile hill with 10% incline anywhere on it - sounds pretty tough.

Mmmmmm hillsprints.

John - 10% definitely makes you appreciate the pros who do upwards of 22% at the end of 100+ mile races in the middle of a 3-week Grand Tour. I just don't have that explosive power to keep the pedals turning over smoothly.

Neil - Think they might be better described as hill-surges? I always think of sprints as longer. But I agree with your sentiment; they're a lot of fun.

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Today is a monumental day! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, today I broke the 1hr barrier for the first time since October 30. And what's more? It didn't hurt.

I was thinking about heading down to "flatter" grounds this morning, but instead decided to just go nice and easy on the old EKG route - some of you may remember this one from over the summer. The tentative goal of the workout was to run two out-and-backs with fairly even splits of :15. Given that each leg of the run is 1.75mi, this gave me a nice, round 7mi - a conservative enough goal for my first hour-long run.

Splits came in at 14:52, 14:21, 14:31, and 14:27, which meant I had a minute or two to putz around in circles until the timer hit 1hr. Yes, I got neurotic about this one and had to see 1:00:00 before I stopped. Total distance came in at 7.33mi, which was a damn nice number to see on the Garmin. I was getting sick of those 3's, 4's, and 5's.

With each additional successful run, I'm getting more and more excited about Boston and feeling more and more confident that a 3:30 "victory lap" through Beantown is well within my grasp.

Hey..congrats on your 1 hour!!

By the way, I was in your town last week but with such a short amount of time there (Flew in Monday, flew out Tuesday), there would be no running to be done. Hasn't changed since I started going to Auburn 18 years ago. Last time was 6 years ago and definitely was untouched.

Man doesn't it feel good to get back out and get back to the training you had before? Kinda makes you appreciate things that you might have taken for granted before, at least thats how I feel. Congrats!