Lock Legs

Yesterday I went for a run with my good friend Colin in Delhi, we did about an hour, nothing fast, just a solid run. We decided to go to the golf course, which is usually a good place to run, but the warm weather had left it one big puddle of slushy snow, but aside from some soggy shoes it was a good run. I then went to the gym in town to lift some heavy things. I've been trying to get in the gym on a more consistent basis lately, the stronger you are, the harder you can train without getting injured. Also the stronger you are, the better you look in your underwear, but that's another post for another day...

I was in the gym going about my business, and I got to the point in my routine that called for squats. Not squats with ridiculous amounts of weight, just enough to work a little. I did three sets, as I got done with the last set, I placed the bar back on the rack...and both hamstrings simultaneously cramped up so hard I thought I was going to fall over. I hobbled around on my seized up legs for a while, until I was able to stretch them out enough to become functional again.

I don't know if I was dehydrated, or it was from not squatting for a while, all I know is that I am one sore pup today. That is until I went on my run, after I got warm, my legs felt great, real strong and smooth. The body is a strange thing.

Only in America

In the spirit of Christmas, the movie "Total Recall" was on tv, as I was channel surfing I stopped to watch Arnold Swarzenegar (or however you spell his name, I honestly don't care enough to look it up). I watched in amazement as the GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA talked to an alien fetus-tumor growing out of a man's side about saving the universe. No wonder this country has problems, one of the largest states in the country is being governed by a 'roided-out meat head from austria who has been quoted talking about lifting weights, saying: "The pump is like cumming" Oh yeah, brilliant, elect that guy.

Finally!

I follow the world of competitive triathlon pretty closely, it's a sport that I'm getting more and more involved in. I plan on getting some races in this summer, so in my list of websites that I perv daily is insidetri.com, the website brother to Inside Triathlon magazine. On the front page the other day was an interview with Chris McCormack, an elite iron-distance triathlete (McCormack won the world championship last year in Kona, Hawaii). In the interview the topic turns to Lance Armstrong, and the possibility of him competing in Ironman, and his chances of winning. McCormack says: "I don't see Lance winning Kona. I'd put money on him having a solid war with someone like Chrissie Wellington."

Finally someone with the balls to put Mr. Armstrong in his place.

Don't get my wrong, I have the utmost respect for Armstrong as an athlete, he is incredible, he has done what no other human has, and I admire his cutthroat competitiveness, and I appreciate the attention that he has brought to the sport of cycling in the U.S. But I've had it with people being so enamored by him that they insist he can dominate any sport he puts his mind to, basically kissing his ass.

McCormack keeps it real, Lance might have a shot against a pretty good woman!

(I mean this in the most non-sexist way possible, I don't mean to offend my female readers, all one of you)

Bad day

I'm sure that anyone who reads this knows exactly what I mean by having a bad day running. Today was one of those days for me, actually one of the worst I've had in a long time. It was one of those days when literally every step is a struggle. It was cold, real cold (18 degrees cold), it was windy, real windy, I dressed all wrong, so my torso was too hot, but my hands, ears, face, and toes were freezing. The road I live on is very hilly, and I had a real heavy breakfast sitting like a brick in my stomach. I was planning on doing a long run, but I got four miles from my house and decided to pull the plug (it was that bad). It's a damn good thing I did, because I barely made it back, it doesn't help that I live on top of a mountain, so every run ends with a mile-long climb, which I basically crawled up today.

I don't take it as a total loss though, I got out there and ran on a day when I really didn't want to, and I got eight miles in (albeit slow and painful miles).

Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug, and today I got smushed. Oh well.

Rural Running

With my second to last semester at Cortland done, I have returned to the place of my birth. I live outside of Delhi, NY. I live on a dirt road in the woods, my nearest neighbor is a quarter-mile away, town is a full 15 minute drive away. This makes for pretty good running, there isn't much traffic, there are some trails in the summer, nice dirt roads to run on. The only thing is, runners are a rare breed around here. The locals don't really know what to do when they see a scantily clad kid running down the road, or as is the case now, they are even more shocked when they see a kid in full spandex kit run past their house/shanty in single digit temperatures. The look on their face is similar to what I imagine people look like when they see Bigfoot or something. Bubba and Billy-Bob usually just give a bemused nod when I sail past their pickup truck as they sit on the side of the road scopin' deer.

Couch Coma

I'm a pretty active person, I get up at a decent time most days, I spin on my bike trainer in the morning, I go to all my classes, I run, I go to the gym. People have told me that I have unlimited energy. This is not true, and the people that live with me can attest to this.

About every other week, all that activity catches up with me. It goes something like this when it happens:

I get back to the apartment from a run, make food, and sit down on the couch to eat it. I put something mindless on the television, and when I finish devouring my food, I flop down on the couch, always with the intention of just resting for a minute before getting up to be productive. Eyes get heavy, find a pillow, just for a minute.

Wake up three hours later.

And I use the term wake up loosely, when I get out of a deep sleep, I'm like a newborn for half an hour or so. I barely know where or who I am, I can't use my words. Eventually I come out of my sleep stupor and function like a human.

Couch comas are rough, but I guess they're necessary. I know other runners suffer from the couch coma phenomenon, as I have witnessed it, usually brought on by the same thing: running followed by food.

For example, Mr. Kyle O'Brien after a long run and a feast:

If it wasn't for running

If it wasn't for running, my life would be like an episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Knowing that I need to run keeps my antics somewhat in check. If I didn't run, there would be nothing to hold me back, chaos would ensue. Not only am I naturally an idiot, I'm surrounded by a supporting cast of idiots.

Down with the man.

As you may or may not know, I was lucky enough to land an internship with a local newspaper over winter break. This is a great opportunity, not only will it give me the credit I need to graduate, it will give me some real-world experience in something I am really passionate about (writing).

I have filled out the litany of forms, and gotten the countless signatures necessary to receive credit for the internship, and I thought I had gotten everything done. But as I got the last form back, stapled to it was an orange paper, telling me that before I could register for the credit, I needed to pay $333.28, as tuition for the credits.

I was, and am still, outraged at this. three hundred and thirty three dollars for 1.5 credits. I won't even be on school grounds, there is no one teaching me that needs to be paid, I'm not using up valuable college resources, I will be 90 miles away, voluntarily working for a private company that has absolutely no connection to this poor excuse for a college.

This is pure, unadulterated greed.

I don't honestly know how President Bitterbaum can look any of the students on this campus in the eye when he knows that we are all being swindled by the school and our beloved government, who despite evidence to the contrary, still assures us that they're on our side.

There's no revolution any more.

Happy to have a home

It's been four years now that I've been out of high school. Four years of not living in the house that I spent the first 18 years of my life in. Every year, when I go home for breaks, it seems less and less like my house is my home. I feel like a visitor in a hotel with really friendly owners. I come back with my bags full of clothes, and never really unpack them. My apartment at school is more my home now. But that doesn't really feel like home either. I guess in some sense of the word, I'm homeless.

The more I think about it though, this apartment is my home, I have friends here in Cortland that I consider family, people that have seen all sides of me, good and bad, and they accept and love me for it, and isn't that what makes it feel like home?

Maybe it's the fact that I'm real tired, and I had a couple drinks, and I'm listening to Radiohead that's making me feel all emotional, but right now as I look out my window at the snow falling on a cold world, it feels pretty damn good to be cozy and warm in my home, knowing that I'll wake up with people that I enjoy being around. Whatever "home" even means, and wherever it may be.

Introducing Bill Pullman

Introducing the mascot of the Not Fast Yet blog. Bill Pullman. Fan mail can be sent to silascarey@yahoo.com

I'm not even fucking fit to wear spikes.

Some might take this as a sign to take some days off, there is nothing to do but train. It's ironic that the only thing that can make running better is to run more.

Race day

I don't even know how many times I have raced in my life. I've been running since the seventh grade, and I still don't know how to handle race day.

In my experience, the more I think about the race, the worse I do. I tend to over-think the whole situation, instead of just letting my body do what it is capable of, my head sabotages the whole race. So my current strategy is to think about the race as little as possible until I get to the line. I know the splits I need to hit, but other than that I try to stay as detached as I can from the race. There's a lot of strange stuff raging around in my brain before a race, I think of things that make me frustrated. I try to bring a lot of anger into a race. I run better when I'm mad.

My good friend Shamus and I have talked a lot about this, and we both came to the conclusion that it's best to run with a chip on your shoulder. No matter who you are, no matter how fast you are, there's someone out there who thinks they can beat you, that you aren't good enough, that you shouldn't be there.

No matter how remote the chances of winning are, you gotta step on that line with every intention of winning.

Run like you've got something to prove.

Noodle Legs

This week we did two workouts back to back.

I am not a fan of this.

With a race this coming weekend, we did a workout on tuesday, some faster intervals in the fieldhouse, then longer intervals on wednesday. By the end of practice I was seriously struggling, my calves felt they were going to rip off the bones. I know by now that my legs had not yet begun to be sore though, that would come the next morning.

Sure enough I woke up the next morning and did the old-man-hobble out of my room to get breakfast. It's not so much an issue of soreness, as much as it is my legs just not working, like I've got wet noodles for legs. (To be honest I am actually really sore too.)

Even though I was in considerable discomfort, there is something satisfying about the feeling, and there is solace in knowing that in a day or two, my legs will recover and I'll be just a little faster and stronger, which is what this silly sport is all about. It's about honing your body and fitness little by little, chipping away at the things that slow you down, so someday, not tomorrow, not next week, but someday, you can just fly down the road.

Weather systems are stupid

I knew it was too good to last. The weather has been beautiful until almost the end of November, and even though I know that it is unrealistic, a little part of me thought that maybe it would stay nice all winter. It finally broke yesterday, as I woke up to sleet tapping at the window and the wind howling. Here come the runs in single-digit temperatures, the runs where you get done and you have icicles on your eyebrows. Here comes the depression brought on by not seeing the sun for three months. You tend to lose all track of what day it is or what time it is, as it gets dark at four o'clock every day.

But there are good parts of winter too, few as they may be.

One thing is the times when cabin fever sets in and I get a little loopy from being inside for too long and decide to go for a run at night. It's great to run through the town lit up only by the yellow glow of streetlights, with the sounds of traffic muffled by the falling snow as I run along silently. It's things like this that do a little toward keeping my sanity through terrible northeast winters.

Other than that I can't wait until global warming really starts kickin' in and Cortland is beachfront property.

Stay Hungry

There is simply no way for a person to succeed in endurance sports without some sort of intrinsic motivation. If you are a runner or cyclist or whatever, you can't be in it just to win some medals and get some prize money. If that is your state of mind, you'll burn out and quit within a couple of months, maybe even sooner. There has to be that burning hunger in you to see how far you can take your body and your mind. It is that hunger that tears you out of bed on cold mornings to go run, it's that hunger that makes you get back at training after you're injured, and you lose all the fitness you've suffered so hard to gain, it's that hunger that keeps you going through the terrible days out there on the road when all you want to do is stop.

That hunger is a tough thing to keep up all the time, and lots of things can threaten to satisfy it. Even success, the very thing that you strive and train for can take your hunger away, which seems counterintuitive, but in my experience, the hardest thing to do is to keep focused after success.

The key is to stay angry, stay insulted by all the people that think you can't do it, stay focused, stay cut throat.

Stay hungry boys and girls.

Awkward encounters

Here's a social experiment, next time you go running, or riding, or even just walking, say hello to the people you pass, and see how many of them respond, or even acknowledge you.

Most likely almost no one will return the greeting. This bothers me, especially when I am running and see someone else who is running, I make a concerted effort to say hello and smile at them. I am almost always met with a funny look, or they just keep looking ahead and pretend I'm not there. Has our society become so self-conscious and uptight that it isn't acceptable to be friendly?

I think this is especially strange behavior between two people that are running, but maybe I'm the only one that thinks there is some kind of bond, a mutual understanding of how miserable running can be at times, and an understanding of how no matter how miserable, we always feel better after a run.

Call me crazy, but I'm going to keep saying hi and smiling at people like an idiot. Join me if you dare.

Sundays

Sunday is a bittersweet day of the week.

The bad part is that it marks the end of the weekend, and the return to work and class.

But Sunday has a lot of good parts too. You get to sleep in, and then you wake up wherever you ended up the night before. Then you and your friends go to a diner for breakfast looking very disheveled and most likely not smelling all that great, wearing the same clothes you wore out saturday night. You order something delicious at the diner and recap the ridiculous things that happened the night before. (Expect a full post about breakfast at diners soon, as it might be my favorite thing ever.) After the diner you go home and digest for a while and try to piece your life back together a little before the long run. With any luck the trails are dry and the sun is shining, as you run farther than most people can fathom. You get back to your house tired, dirty, smelling even worse than before, but satisfied and happy in a sort of semi-comatose way. After a good sunday like that you might just have the strength and patience to make it through another week without losing your whole entire mind.

My house is most likely going to explode

That's it, my apartment is going to blow up.

Or something like that is going to happen, too many good things have happened, and the only way for the universe to stay in balance is for something bad to happen. In the past 12 hours the following has happened:

I got an internship with a newspaper, meaning I will in fact graduate college and might even get a job.

My housemate Paul got hired with the Bank of Tokyo, like an actual job with a salary and everything.

My other housemate Eddie is applying for a position with UBS as a compliance officer, which he has a good chance of getting because he has a cousin that works there.

That is far too much success for the world to handle at once. I don't think I'm going to leave the house for a while, because if I do I will most likely get hit by a car, or arrested, or something. If I have a good run today too, it's over.

The fact that all of us idiots will be the ones making society function should scare everyone. Here we come world!!!!

Between a Rock and a Moron

The topic of discussion on the run the other day was Aron Ralston, the author of "Between a Rock and a Hard Place," the true story of how he amputated his own arm with a pocketknife when it got caught under a rock when he was hiking alone in the canyons of Utah. For some reason, the man has been seen as a hero, an ideal of the outdoorsman that does whatever he needs to in order to survive.

Bullshit.

Aron Ralston is an idiot. He went hiking alone, bad. He didn't tell anyone where he was going, bad. He climbed on suspended rocks, bad. It took him seven days to realize he could break the bone and cut his way out, bad.

We decided that it wouldn't have taken a week to decide to cut the arm off and get back to the nearest McDonalds. Arms are expendable, that's why god gave us two of them. If my head was stuck under a rock, it might have been a little tougher of a decision, as I have only one head.

Today we salute you Aron Ralston, real original title for a book.

Shockingly, whiskey is not an ideal pre-run drink

The balance between training and socializing is a delicate thing.

The first saturday without a cross country meet is a chance to let the balance tip toward the social end of things. As me and my compadres ventured to the Red Jug Pub, I was introduced to a new drink, the whiskey ginger, and approached this delicious concoction with my normal lack of moderation. It was a great night, filled with fun and mischief, with the night culminating with the kidnapping of several shoes belonging to people who shall go unnamed, and resulting in one man having to walk back to our house Shoeless Joe Jackson style.

I tried to keep all the fun I had saturday night in mind as I staggered through a 17 mile run on sunday. Strangely whiskey is not the most hydrating fluid, my cotton-mouth and the salt rings accumulating on my shirt from sweat without enough water in it are testaments to that.

One of the good things about being fit is that even with a lil' bit of a hangover, runs aren't that bad, as I still managed to average about 6:40 a mile for the whole thing, albeit with a little more effort and self-loathing than usual. Gotta love college.

What I want to be when I grow up!

Saturday is by far the least productive day of the week.

As usual, last saturday was spent lounging on the couch watching tv, I happened upon the movie "Australia" on HBO, and by the time it was halfway through, I was not at all interested, but my friend Paul and I decided we had already watched to much to not finish it.

...There's three hours of my life I'll never get back.

On my run later that day, I reflected on the waste of yet another day. If you haven't already seen the movie, consider yourself lucky, it's fucking awful. The only good thing that came from it is that I now know what I want to be when I grow up, I want to be an Aboriginal Shaman, like"King George," the Shaman from the movie, here's a picture. He's so real!

Not Fast Yet

I am an endurance athlete. I enjoy the sports that most people see as nothing but suffering, running, cycling, swimming. While other athletes spend their time honing skills on the field or on the court, endurance athletes spend long solitary hours on the roads and trails, honing their bodies to the task of covering distances that most people couldn't fathom covering without a car.

Naturally endurance athletes spend a lot of time alone with their thoughts, the mind is free to wander during a two-hour run, or a four-hour ride. It provides the clarity of thought without the constant barrage of sights and sounds that are ever-present in the world today. This blog is an outlet for my thoughts, a glimpse into what goes on in my strange mind when it is free to roam.

Cheers, enjoy.

-Silas