Lucid Dream album art

This image will be the cover of the forthcoming Lucid Dream "Object of Reality" compilation on my temporarily resurrected Elephant Stone record label. It's taken from a painting by my wife, Arabella Proffer, who recently had a successful solo show in San Francisco and also sold out a collection of her art at a show last month in Baton Rouge. The CD will be a limited edition of 200 so fans of original art, as well as fans of psychedelic/post-punk bands like Echo and The Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes will want to grab this up fast!

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My Arsenal

 

This is my current lineup of training and racing shoes. On the left is the Pearl Izumi Kissaki, a lightweight trainer. Dead center is the Pearl Izumi Streak 2, which I use for races and fast workouts like tempo runs and intervals. On the right is the New Balance 890, another lightweight trainer, which I alternate with the Kissaki on my easy 'normal' runs. I also have a pair of cross country spikes that I wear in about 2-3 races a year. All are highly recommended shoes if you have a neutral footstrike. My Streak 2's are starting to get a bit beat up so I'll probably get another pair of those in the Spring. I like the new black color scheme better than the current lime green one.

As my post title is a play on Morrissey, here is something by the man:

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Heavy Stereo

Heavy Stereo might be a footnote in Britpop history, but they deserved better. Signed to Creation after Oasis, Heavy Stereo were probably too "rock 'n' roll" for some of the indie kids (see the Flying V on the cover of their debut single "Sleep Freak"). Too bad. In addition to "Sleep Freak," which is a nice glammy update to Lennon's "Instant Karma," the group released three more singles and an excellent album Deja Voodoo. As most Britpop fans know, when Heavy Stereo broke up, frontman Gem Archer joined the Mark 2 Oasis lineup that also featured Andy Bell from Ride. Archer and Bell are currently in Beady Eye with Liam Gallagher. I'll leave you with another 'gem', the trippy B-Side "Wonderfools" from the second Heavy Stereo single "Smiler".

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More Chase Your Shadow 5K photos

These were on the Friends of Portage Lake Facebook page. Not sure who took them!

Taking a pre-race Groundhog photo!

The start. Looks nice, eh?

Finishing 'kick'

 Meeting the mayor

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Marion rise from the ashes

My friend Coulter pointed me to an amazing recent interview with Marion vocalist Jaime Harding on NME.com conducted by Luke Lewis. I had always wondered what happened to the Northern English glam meets post punk outfit who hit it big in the UK in the mid-Nineties with their stellar 1996 debut album This World and Body. Lewis' interview provides some amazing insight into the highs and lows of rock 'n' roll stardom. I had heard that Harding had numerous drug problems, but nothing to this extent. Fortunately, the article has a happy ending. Harding is clean and the band's original lineup has reformed to play a series of UK dates in April. If you can find a copy of This World and Body, grab it up. Anyone who loves The Smiths/Morrissey and Suede will dig it.

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Chase Your Shadow 5K

I was joking that the Groundhog was wrong after he called for six more weeks of winter, but he got his revenge on us this morning. At least on those of us who ventured south of Cleveland to Portage Lakes for the Chase Your Shadow 5K. It was 40 and nice when I left my house, but looked like this when we arrived:

The roads were in pretty bad shape too. Very slushy and packed snow/ice in some spots when I did my warm up. While I wasn't expecting a PR in February, I knew from workouts that I was pretty fit so I decided that my pre-race plan would be to pace it like a cross country race and just deal with the elements as they came. This was the scene as we got ready to go over to the starting line:

The race wasn't as bad as I thought it would be though. The first mile had a decent gradual elevation and I was able to work my way into third by then and I could tell that I was gaining on the guy in second but it would take some work to get there. Just after the mile we looped around and came back and I was able to take advantage of the net downhill mile two to catch the guy in second with about 3/4 of a mile to go.  I battled it out as best as I could over the last bit with the youngster I caught but he was able to break me with about 600 to go and though I finished strong I didn't quite have it to go with him. In any case I was third overall in 18:07, which translates to 5:50 pace on the nose. My pacing was pretty even. I was around 11:35 at 2 miles and didn't slow down too much in the hilly section of the final mile, so all and all a solid showing for my first race of 2012. As you can see I'm pretty happy post-race after a warm meal!

A good start to the year. For the next month or two, I'll continue to run mostly easy mileage at my 60-70% heart rate zone with a few tempos thrown in before getting into some more race pace specific stuff.

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