Bridge Semantics

I put XM's Minneapolis Traffic and Weather channel on this morning when I got into my car, to see if there were any accidents that would slow my drive to work. They said that I-35W is closed from University to Washington because of construction. Later, they informed me that 2nd Street was closed from 8th Avenue to 11 Avenue, due to the bridge collapse of August 1st. Apparently, the bridge is now closed because they're working on building a new one, but the streets around it are closed because of the collapse.

Suburban Shopping

One nice thing about working in the southern suburbs of Minneapolis is the proximity to the place I usually stay away from, the MOA. At lunch today, I hopped on the beltway and headed to the MOA, where I bought a pair of shoes and a pair of boots at Bostonian for a grand total of $99, with no sales tax (thank you for that, Minnesota). They were originally $140 and $170, respectively. Sweet deal :) Then I ran to Chipotle and was back at my desk in under an hour. Beautiful.

I was walking back to my desk thinking that this was a plus to working in the burbs. Then I realized that if I was working downtown, I could have done the same thing without leaving the skyway. Of course, I wouldn't have been able to go the actual Bostonian store, but I would've had Macy's, Saks, etc. I may not have gotten the same deal, but it would have taken less time and no car. My momentary joy in having found a plus to the suburbs was sucked away. But at least it's a southern suburb, so the MOA is an option.

Lazy Suburbanite

This evening I was walking out of the typical big suburban office complex in which I spend most of my days, when I heard a faint rumbling noise behind me. I knew exactly what it was -- one of those suitcases on wheels. But why would anyone bring a suitcase to work? O yeah, then I remembered, if you're super lazy, you can get a briefcase or laptop case on wheels. My question, how lazy do you have to be to drag your briefcase on it's two-inch diameter wheels through a parking lot covered in dirty, icy, sandy snow in suburban Minneapolis? Seriously people, have another doughnut.

Better 5K

I re-ran my 5K "tempo" run last night. I'm still pretty sure it doesn't count as a tempo run. I basically ran 5K as fast as a thought I could. I broke my 25 minute goal with a time of 24:52 :) I still think I could do it faster, because I think I started out to slow. But non the less, it wasn't that long ago that running 10 minute miles just exhausted me. So that's progress.

Having said all this, I must remind my readers, if there are any, that the run was done on a treadmill set at a 1.5% incline. It's still below 0 in Minneapolis, with windchills coming close to -30. I'm not running outside when then windchill is 62 degrees below freezing! It should warm up --all the way to the 20s-- by the weekend, so I shifted my long run to Saturday. Hopefully I can run it outside.

5K Temp Run

Thank you, freezing cold Minneapolis. I did another treadmill (again, at 1.5% elevation) run last night. This was suppose to be my tempo run, although I'm pretty sure I don't do tempo runs correctly. I have a tendency to start out too slow and then try to hit my goal time by flying at the end. I would like my tempo runs of 5k and 10k to be at a sub 8 minute mile. Last night's 5k ended at 26:56 (8:41 second miles). But my last mile was well under 8 minutes (probably around 7:30). Basically, I probably could've set the damn thing at 7.5mph and just gone through it to finish right under 25 minutes. I guess that's part of training -- learning what I can do. I wish I would learn by pushing limits, not realizing I didn't hit them. So that left me fairly disappointed. My simple math and guestimates tell me that if I can't run a 10k in under 50 minutes, I have no real shot at a marathon in under 4 hours. Sooo.... that is my "tempo run" goal. Of course, you don't need to be a runner to know that if I can't run a 5k in under 25 minutes, then I can't run a 10k in under 50. But progress is progress, and I am getting faster. And I still logged six miles after warmup and cooldown. So that does put me at 23 miles for the week (after three days). That sounds like a lot in my head, then I remember, a marathon is 26.2, and I've got to do that in four hours, not four days!

Shouldering the Cold

I did a 5 mile run, painfully slow, last night -- again on the treadmill (thank you, minus sign). Afterwards I did a few "functional training" circuits. I threw some heavy (for me) bench presses into the first circuit to see how I was doing. That was bad idea. My left shoulder has gone through some bad times in my life, from a dislocated sternoclavicular joint in high school, to a rotator cuff problem 4 years ago, to what I believe to be sight fracture of the collarbone this summer that was caused by a wicked fall off of a bike. It doesn't like heavy bench presses. I find this quite odd, as it doesn't seem to mind dips, even on rings, which at least feel like they're applying much more pressure to the shoulder. But today I feel like someone has lodged a big needle permanently into my delt, and I don't like it one bit. I hope I didn't mess it up worse.

This weekend's highs for Minneapolis are -1 on Saturday and -2 on Sunday, with windchills down to -25. That's Jon-speak for "Hello, Treadmill." Could be a long January. I hope it warms up a bit (I'd take 20's without awful wind) by February, so I can do those last few really long weeks of marathon training outside.

That Stupid Minus Sign

That stupid minus sign has started showing up next to the number that represents the current temperature. Minnesota in January -- what did I expect? It was -3 on my drive in to work this morning, and still is now. Ouch. Last night, I had my LSR (that's long slow run, in marathon geek speak). I had to do it indoors, do to the bitter wind. 12 miles on a treadmill, with the incline set at 1.5% to try to make my legs think they're working outside. Not fun. To top it off, the next episode of Heroes that I had queued up on my iPod Touch was corrupted for some reason, and I didn't want to watch them out of order. So I spent a half hour watching Entertainment Tonight -- who watches that crap? Why do so many people care what Brittney Spears does? -- and one hour watching the new American Gladiators. Both were in closed captioning while I listened to random music shuffled off the iPod. Needless to say, it was painful. On the plus side, I ran it in just under 2 hours. After my warmup of a couple miles, I ticked off around a consistent 9:45 mile. That pace isn't going to impress many people, but it gives me hope that I have a shot at a four hour marathon, which is the goal that I fear is slipping away.

Practice, Tests, and Politics

Has anyone else here ever heard the concept of doing something only makes you better at doing that one thing? I'm not sure I worded that very well, but here's an example. Take the leg extension machine at the gym. You can do them for months and all you'll get is better at doing let extensions. You won't get better at anything useful, like running up stairs. Same thing with tests. When I was loosely toying with the idea of applying to law school, I remember reading a few books on the LSAT. They all basically said the same thing, and that was this: the LSAT only tests how well you can take the LSAT, it does not test your intelligence, or even how well you'll do in law school. Which brings me around to politics. The coverage of the primaries made me realize something: an election is just the LSAT. The only thing getting elected proves, is that you're good at getting elected. It in no way demonstrates any ability to lead, make good decisions, solve problems, or do anything else useful once in office. This highlighted by coverage of these primaries. It appears that the vast majority of coverage goes to someone's "strategy", not at all their platform or qualifications. I half expect to see John Madden hop on the screen during a debate to start doing play by play.

I don't know what anyone can do about this. All I know is that more and more I follow politics, the more I seem to want to stay the fuck out of it and just hope my taxes don't go up, my health care doesn't suddenly start getting controlled by politicians, and I don't get blown up traveling somewhere. Here's hoping.

New Years Eve Part II

Dominic pointed out that my last post was actually only photos of the night before New Year's Eve, which Brian pointed out was also his 28th birthday. Apparently, my camera never made it out of my pocket on New Year's Eve. Dominic has some pictures from that night at Bar Abilene though:

http://picasaweb.google.com/dominic.romeo/NewYearSEveInMinneapolis

New Years Eve 2008

I finally got around to uploading my pictures from our New Year's Eve weekend.

Weekend of Moving Art

So this weekend was spent mostly watching movies and going to a musical – with some martinis mixed in for good measure. Friday night we went to see Juno, the new film by Diablo Cody. Saturday night, we went to see Avenue Q (again) at the State Theater. And Sunday morning we (finally) watched Pan’s Labyrinth on DVD.

Friday night was movie night, and we headed out to see Juno. Fantastic. Best comedy I’ve seen in a long time. It was like Garden State, only funny – like, Little Miss Sunshine, only watchable. It’s one of those few movies that you’d go pay AMC to see again right away, if only so you can remember more of those many witty one liners, even though they won’t be nearly as good when you repeat them as they were delivered in the film.

Saturday night we went to the State Theater to finally see Avenue Q again. We saw it in July of 2006 on Broadway, and I’ve been dying to see it again. It is hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. We were lucky enough to get front row tickets this time. When we saw it in New York, we were, of course, way up in the upper balcony. I would, however, recommend seeing this play from up high the first time you see it. This is because half of the characters in play are puppets. Hand puppets that have an actor or two on stage controlling them. From up high, you easily forget the actors are there, and can get much more immersed in the story. From the front row, I found myself following the actor more than the puppet. The actors did great jobs acting, with fantastic facial expressions, and it was fun to watch. However, I think it takes something away from the story to not focus on the puppets. Just my opinion though.

The Puma Kid

I've got so much I need to post about. I've been completely slacking lately, and so much has been going on. But first, I wanted to make a quick post to get this video out here. Josh and I were at the Mall of America in between trips to the airport to pick people up. We walked into the Puma store, because we both like Puma stuff. There was a loud DJ playing as we walked towards the back to shop. We heard people clapping, so we turned around and saw this kid dancing. I happened to have my camera on me: