Rock 'n' Roll Runner: April 2008

I just learned that sales for the company I work for are down over 15% this year and morale in the office is at an all-time low. Lots of people have been putting in their notice this year. Without giving the name of the company away (if you read my resume, you'll find out), I edit press releases for wire distribution (mainly financial) for lots of publicly traded Fortune 500 companies. The job was great when I started three years ago when the company had a bunch of small regional offices. Just over a year ago, after a huge consolidation, Cleveland suddenly became the East Coast hub due to some incredible tax breaks we were able to get to create lots of jobs in Cleveland. Thing is we hired a lot of people and a lot of them have already quit after being here one year or less! The closeness we had in the old Cleveland office seems to have all but disappeared and there are a lot more corporate rules and regulations (see the entry I wrote last year about Rolling Stone being banned in the office for being sexist!).

I need to get out, sooner rather than later, so I've been getting off my ass and shopping around so to speak. If anyone wants to read my resume, I have a link set up to my Linkedin profile.

Race Report: Old Oak Run 5K

Another 5K and another 'long' course and I've got the proof below! Anyway, today I was 4th overall and the 3rd master at the Old Oak Run 5K. I ran a solid even paced race, hitting 5:34 at the mile and 11:05 at the 2-mile. Those splits felt right based on recent workouts I've run, so I knew if I just held form that I would most likely get a nice masters PR. Somehow I ended up with a 17:31, which I know had to be off a bit as I definitely didn't slow down to 6:00 pace at the end! Anyway, the top master was my Team Good River teammate Ron Dorfeld who ran a 17:06. He clocked the following data. As you can see, Ron hit the actual 5K mark in 16:44, which means I was at 17:09 more or less:

Well, once again Hermes Sports changes a course around and screws up the overall distance. My Garmin had the course at 3.18, and below is the exported .GPX file to MapMyRun.com that had the course at 3.2 miles!

With Sport Tracks training log you are able to pick up a split anywhere during the run using a GPS waypoint. The one below shows my actual 5K time was 16:44 which is more in line with the way it felt.

Training Update

Like good rock 'n' roll bands, global warming seems to have bypassed Ohio, but I can feel Spring start to slowly kick in and I'm feeling ready to roll. I've got a 5K race coming up next Saturday and I think I can get damn close to breaking 17:00 for the first time as a Masters runner. This past week I ran 51 miles with two solid workouts. On Wednesday I did 3 x mile in 5:27 on the track with 2:30 rest breaks and that felt relatively easy and controlled. 5:27 pace works out to 16:59 on the nose for 5K so I'm getting there. Yesterday I did a 4 mile tempo run in the metro park in 23:46 (5:56 pace) in windy and rainy conditions and that felt relatively easy too. Short tempos (3-4 miles) are supposed to be run at 25-30 seconds slower than 5K race pace with the focus being on keeping your effort as smooth as possible, so again I hit the exact zone I should have been at for this workout too. This week's plan is for some easy running with a mid-week moderate speed workout. As of today, I'm thinking something like 8 x 400 @ slightly faster than 5K race pace (maybe 5:20 pace) with brisk 200 jogs in :60 for my rest breaks.

Elephant Stone Podcast Interview

My wife, Bella Vendetta, did an interview with cool UK music podcasters, Frogcast the Podcast. You can check it out here. In addition to the interview, they play some tunes from the label, including "Neon" by Daydream Nation, which was used on a Tony Hawk commercial.

As you know, the label has been on hiatus for about a year though there was a good amount of licensing activity that more than made up for a lack of new release sales. As far as future releases go, I think I'm going to stray away from the mass produced CD business model. CD sales are dying everywhere and wouldn't you know, limited edition vinyl is coming back. Elvis Costello just put out an album that is only available on vinyl or digital download. We're thinking about doing the same thing starting with a series of limited edition 7" singles with screen printed covers done by cool artists.

Getting good at running is more important to me than rock 'n' roll right now, but I don't totally want to shut music out of my life so doing something more low key on a hobby level is a nice compromise and will help make working for the man more tolerable.

Training Update

I haven't posted one of these in a while because I have a link to my training log on here, but everything is going really well. Did my first track workout of the year on Wednesday, April 2. No that's not a typo -- the weather has been really crappy here this winter. I did the old school Arkansas Breakdown workout (though some people say they stole it from the late great Athletics West club). My high school coach had us do this in the early 80s too. In any case, it's a ladder consisting of a mile, 1200, 800, and 400 with 400 meter jog rests in between. I started at 5K "effort" for the mile and hit 5:31, followed by 4:04, 2:39 and 75. A good rust buster. I'll try to forget that in high school I could start at around 4:45 or so for the mile and finish in like 64! I also ran a very smooth 23:56 4-mile Tempo today, starting at 6:11 and working down to 5:49. My next race will probably be a 5K in mid-April and I definitely plan to do the next Run Ohio Grand Prix event, which is a 5K in Barberton on May 3.