Eyebrows

If you look at sketches of homo erectus you'll see some seriously bushy eyebrows, maybe even a monobrow.  I'm a scientist so I'm pretty sold on the whole evolution thing.  I'm convinced that big furry eyebrows were beneficial to Cro-Magnon guy.  You can imagine the unfortunate results of having sweat drip into your eye just as you're throwing a spear at a charging mammoth.  Darwin says that natural selection is going to favor the big eyebrow guys.  But then something happened.  Maybe Cave Joe stared at Cave Jane's monobrow for just a couple of seconds too long on their second date and Cave Jane spent the next day with Cave Sue and Cave Betty obsessing about why Cave Joe hadn't called her yet and it must be because of her hideous eyebrows that make her look fat and thus began the painful rituals of plucking and waxing.  Whatever the cause the modern day females favor thin, tailored brows to the prehistoric bushy ones (except for the occasional Brooke Shields) and for the most part this works for them.  However, evolution is a sneaky little thing.  It would appear that those fuzzy eyebrows still do serve a purpose.  That is, at least in some situations like, say, when you go out running when it's 70 degrees and 96% humidity.  And while there were no charging mammoths the sweat still stings when it gets in your eye.  Damn Cave Joe.  I knew there was a man to blame for all of this.

A very nice run

I got out for my first run in over two weeks the other day.  It was great.  It was the first time in a very long time when I didn't have a time or distance or pace goal.  I just ran (and no, I didn't run so far away - flock of seagulls fans).  I've always found it somewhat depressing how quickly one loses cardio ability after a break in exercise but I also know it comes back pretty quickly.  Rather than pushing myself and getting all out of breath and feeling bad about it I decided to take it easy.  The weather was quite nice and I just enjoyed the day and the run.  I'm heading out again today, hoping for a repeat performance.  I'm looking forward to getting back into a routine again.

Oops!

Wow.  I can't believe I never posted after the race.  I guess that tells you that I didn't shatter any records, huh?  And it also tells you that not too many people read this silly blog.  Oh well.  Let's see... the Broad Street.  The weather was on the miserable side.  While it didn't rain the entire time it was very humid and drizzly.  Despite that I did manage to improve slightly on my time from last year, finishing in 1:26 which translates to 8:36 splits.  The skies opened up shortly after I crossed the finish line and I discovered that my fancy running watch was not waterproof.  Live and learn.  A week later I ran the Philly Race for the Cure.  The plan was to go all out since it was only a 5K, however the fact that there were over 40,000 other people on the course made that a little more difficult that I had anticipated.  I should have pushed closer to the front of the pack before the start as I spent at least half the race working around slower runners.  While the official results aren't in yet I estimate I did 8:30 splits.  Nowhere near my 8:00 New Year's Resolution but that's OK.  Maybe next year.

I'm already registered for the 2009 Philadelphia Marathon.  181 days until the race.  I have 6 weeks before I start training.  I've taken a couple of weeks off from running but I'll be back out there on Tuesday.  Looking forward to it.

Fidgety

I had forgotten how weird it feels to taper.  I get all fidgety and have a hard time sitting still.  Tomorrow is race day.  Today I was scheduled to run a comfortable 20 minutes.  However, since I was feeling restless I decided to push myself pretty hard to see what I could do.  I managed 2.4 miles with 8:16 splits.  Not too bad.  It's hard to say if I could have done better.  I certainly wasn't sprinting and I was trying to avoid hurting myself since I do have to run 10 miles tomorrow but I am very curious if this 8-minute mile thing on the 10th might actually happen.  I don't know.  I think it will be close.  When you're running in a huge crowd of people you tend to run faster and there's the whole adrenaline thing, too.  All I can say is we'll see.  For now I need to just focus on tomorrow.  The forecast is for rain.  Yuck.