My Legs

Not my actual legs, but the legs I'll be running this weekend at the Ragnar Del Sol Relay.

Quads

You've heard me complain about my hamstrings. You've heard me complain about my ITBs. You might have even heard me whine about my arches. What you've not heard is any complaints about my quads. You see, long distance runners don't really hammer their quads like they do to their hamstrings. Quads are a sprinting muscle. The only time distance runners seriously use them is when they are going downhill. Well to my surprise, my quads have been sore for a week.

Last Tuesday I did my usual track workout (5 x 1600s). Wednesday I was fine. Thursday morning I woke up and my quads were sore. This was surprising, but it wasn't painful, just sore, so I ignored it. However, the soreness has continued. It's a little baffling. I went faster than normal last Tuesday (about 30 seconds per mile faster - 6:30s) in anticipation of Richard yelling at me to run faster for our relay this weekend, but it didn't hurt at all. I've run a 1/2 marathon doing 6:30s the whole way and I wasn't sore afterward. I haven't run any massive downhills lately.

The only thing I can think of is that my shoes have broken down a little earlier than normal. They have 480 miles on them right now. Usually I retire a pair of shoes at 500 miles, even though I know they probably have another 100 miles or so in them. I just do it to avoid injury. However, the only other time I've run in shoes for too long and felt the pain, the pain was in my foot and calf, not my quads. It's puzzling.

The other thing is maybe I'm just getting old. I thought I had another 5 or so fast running years left in me, but maybe I was wrong. Or maybe I'll still be able to run fairly quickly, but will be made to pay a price. I really am not looking forward to the breaking down of my body. Maybe I need to look into the whole Barry Bonds regimen. So I live to 85 instead of 100. Not that big a deal.

Nicknames

I've been called many things over the years, most of them I will not print due to sensitive eyes (Who am I kidding, I just don't want both of you to start asking for Miggidy Mixmaster Mike (Triple M) when you call and Liz picks it up, which would then lead to her asking me to put on her blue sequin blouse and spin my Kenny G records). However, I've learned over the past year in consulting how clients view consultants. Clients. Not those affected by the work that consultants do. Huge difference there. How clients view me has led to an interesting nicknaming phenomenon.

My two favorites are:

- The Quiet Tornado

and

- The Sledgehammer

Mo, Compel Me

During break time when I should be buying another 20oz Diet Coke or perhaps just stretching my cramped hamstrings, I instead have taken to commenting on this blog. Mo, you posting about politics has got to be the single worst thing you have ever done to me. And you have done some pretty terrible things to me. We won't discuss those things. Will we. Ever.

Gravy

I'm a decent cook. Actually, I don't cook very many things, but those things that I do make, I make better than average. You see, I've discovered the secret to food that tastes good. It's called fat. My main ingredients are butter, cream, chicken fat, and whole milk. Although I'd much rather use cream than whole milk, as whole milk just isn't fatty enough.

Well, Liz has recently discovered that I have perfected my gravy and now desires it above all other things. All. Other. Things. The sounds that emanated from her yesterday made me a little jealous. I kept telling myself that at least I was the indirect cause of so much ecstasy. After 30 minutes of ooohing and aaahhing, I decided that it was little consolation. I might make her wait a month for the next batch.

Briones

The five of us training for the SLC Marathon, plus three others, went for a 20 miler on Saturday. We met in Orinda, ran 3 miles to Briones Reservoir, ran the 14 miles around it, then ran the 3 miles back. You'll notice a sudden drop in elevation right before mile 16 and that my total mileage on my watch was only 18. Both were due to me forgetting to turn my watch back on as I was waiting for some other runners to catch up.

The run was inspiring, as any run that has the climbs that this run has should. I think that going forward I am going to incorporate two 20 mile hill runs into my training schedule. The current schedule has five 20s and two 22s, but it is all on flat ground. I have a feeling that having two of my 20s be on runs like this can only help.

Last

I've noticed that oftentimes I am the last person to comment on a particular blog entry, usually after I've commented about something I feel strongly about. I've come to the realization that this phenomenon occurs because I am right. Oh, you could say it's because I'm a troll and others don't want to feed the troll. You could also say that most people really just don't care what I say. And finally, someone could say that I'm often late to the party and others have moved on to newer blog pastures, but I know the truth and deep down, so do you.

PTC is on the money. Don't forget it.

Market Research

Apparently I don't know my audience very well. Maybe I should put some of my marketing knowledge to work here.

Market Potential - about 2 billion

Current Market Share - .0000000000000000000000095%

Market Concentration - we'll go with geographical concentration - primarily a 15 square mile area in the East Valley with a few outliers

Market Demand - almost 0

Elasticity of Demand - well, since this is a free site, we can't really measure it, but let's assume that my content is so good that it's about .2

Here's where it gets fun:

Market Segment - if you simply looked at my posts, you would assume that I am targeting runners and readers (although really, who am I kidding, my real target audience is myself)

However, if we measure how well my content is received by the number of comments that each particular post receives, we can plainly see that my content needs to change if I want to drive up my readership.

Popular culture appears the way to go. Running, gone. Reading, gone. The Lottery, stays. WoW, not sure yet. 8.5 million current subscribers can't be all wrong. Stay tuned for my next post about the Anna Nicole mystery, to be followed by my post on Tom Cruise's bizarre love triangle that involves a donkey.

This change in strategy should increase my comments, drive up my earnings, and give me an overall boost in self-esteem. I probably should have caught on to this trend a long time ago, but you know me, I'm a little stubborn, prone to delusions of my own self-importance, and basically not too bright. Thank you all for this revelation. I didn't even need to fast to receive it. It would have helped if someone had told me this 25 months ago when I started this thing. I could have been living off of this site by now.

$370 Million

That's a lot of clams. Every news site has a headline on it. The radio personalities keep talking about what they would do with that much money. I'll admit, I'm not immune. That much money would be very nice and I can imagine many things I would do with it, not all of them frivolous. However, when it all comes down to it and as has been said by many others, "The lottery is a tax on the stupid." If you're going to gamble, play something with a little bit better odds, like craps or poker or insider trading. Not that I am encouraging gambling.

Guilty Pleasure

Not every book I read is about history, war, politics, and economics. I do have my guilty pleasures. Stephen King's Dark Tower Series is one of those. I had read books 1 through 4 many years ago and at Christmas, when I received a Barnes & Noble gift card, I decided not to add to my non-fiction library, but to add to my science fiction library and bought the last three books of the Dark Tower. I started reading Wolves of the Calla two days ago and am now about half way through it. I'm not going to summarize it because if you haven't read books 1 through 4, you'd be completely lost. It's a very good read. The series is unlike most of King's writing. When I read book 1, The Gunslinger, I was immediately hooked. There's a broad theme of showing humanity how tiny we really are that resonates with me. That and all of the gun play of course. Although if you start at book 1, know that it is the slowest of the books in terms of action. When King wrote it originally as a short story, I'm not sure he meant for it to become what it has become.