Lunatic vs Pigdog

Even as a distance runner, I have to admit there's something creepy about a part of the ultra crowd. One of the four DVDs I own is Running on the Sun, which profiles a bunch of participants in the Badwater Ultra, a 135-mile race through Death Valley. Not my cup of tea, but I admire the people that do it, particularly after Stroh of Arabia and I met Rudy Afanardor, a Badwater runner-up and Cirulnick-Inamarato winner. I don't dig the gimmick crowd, like Robert Garside, who has been certified by the Guinness Book of World Records for "running around the world" over four years. He apparently obtained a Venezuelan bride along the way. As With Leather points out, Garside has plenty of persuasiv doubters. I admire what the RuntheUSA guys did a few years back, but this guy I find creepy. He's a little too John Mark Carr for my tastes.

5.75 miles, 45:16

Why I Love the NBA

LeBron James is building a little house for himself in Cleveland. It's not small, but I think it will fit perfectly with the neighborhood.

Outside, the west wall will feature a limestone sculpture -- a bas-relief of LeBron's head, wearing his trademark headband.

Oh, you could fit approximately 150 of my apartments in his house.

Portrait of the Runner

I don't think the pigdog stands much of a chance Saturday. That's when KT will face it down during the Ripple Run in Indy. It's a five-mile race, the farthest she's gone since I conned her into giving running a try a couple months ago. There's an Achilles problem that won't be fun. For my part, I'll be there, hopefully in a supportive role, always ready with an inspirational Karate Kid quote. Fear does not exist in this dojo.

6.5 miles, 57:00 (ran with others, some not so quick on their feet)

Web Video Thoughts

Everyone's talking Web video these days. I wrote two stories (actually three, but one is behind a subscription wall) about it in this week's issue. The first throws some cold water on the NBC-News Corp. "YouTube killer." The gist of it is big media companies look at the Internet as plumbing, not a totally different platform that revolves around community and interactivity. The other story looks at how Web video is leading to the rebirth of the infomercial. It plays off some product-y videos done by DuPont, but my favorite is the success of the "Will it blend" series:

The Chop Shop

With a fair amount of trepidation, I tried something new: an upscale-ish barbershop, Franks' Chop Shop. This was not a salon, thankfully not that Japanese guy Mitsuru, but an old-school barbershop on the Lower East Side owned by guys who publilsh an artsy culture magazine. Strange. But reputed to be the place for the best cheap men's haircut in New York.

I told the guy I wanted something different, and he suggested we use my hair's prickly nature as a force for good, not evil. This is the result. I feel a little like Joe Isuzu, but it's nice to have short hair. The last time I got a different type of haircut, at the hands of Mitsuru, I had a coworker who flat-out stared at during the entirety of a news meeting. I'll probably get the same.

Great story in the Times today about enjoying the NCAA tourney in Vegas. I got to see the first weekend of the tournament there about five years ago, and the scene at the sports books is pretty much how the Times describes it.

“We come here from the airport and literally go three or four days without ever seeing the sun,” said the elder Mr. Wickell, 67, a retired computer network administrator. “My wife calls us to ask about the weather, and I tell her the same thing every time: ‘72 degrees and smoky.’ ”

6 miles, 47:06

Pigdog Thoughts

Thanks to Google, I found someone else musing about the internal pigdog, much more elegantly. This is how Geoff described it last October, in a post about:

You usually have to fight against your Schweinehund while playing a sport or working out, late in the game when you're nearly exhausted but still have to perform. Your inner Schweinehund is the part of you that wants to give up, quit, go home and let the other guy win. The inner Schweinehund can't take it any more, doesn't care about winning or losing, so if you don't want to be a quitter, you have to fight back and beat it.

Right on. Tomorrow, I confront the pigdog on the Lower East Side.

Return of the Long Run?

Ok, Ok, so I took two months off between posts. I truly don't understand how the bloggerati do it. I'm in awe.

I'm finally starting to feel back to semi-normal after a bout with the flu and nagging hamstring/IT band injuries threw me off. It's pretty humbling to go back to being out of shape. Today I ran along the Hudson, down to about Chelsea Piers. There's been more progress to the Hudson River Park Project, including another sweet mini-park just north of Chelsea Piers (JuNoChePi?). It was the first time I've run an hour in at least three months. I miss being able to run 20.

Random thing to check out that an agency dude told me about: social-shopping site I Like Totally Love It. Nice concept, interesting stuff, such as the Communist party t-shirt.

8 miles, 1:02:10