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Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 4:20 PM
Subject: Incline Club V6 LR #18
Hi ICers,
About this time in our training some start to feel like they have reached a frustrating plateau. Well basically that is true! You can only accomplish so much by running long runs no matter how you run them. You can get fit as hell but it is hard to get fast. Therefore it is time for a transition in our training. Soon we will be adding in quality runs during the week. Namely Thursday hill work for the club and Tuesday track stuff for many. I would like to encourage EVERYONE to think about adding some semi-hard stuff in over the next two weeks to help the transition go smoothly. It does not have to be anything fancy.
A good workout that will serve this purpose nicely is 20 minutes of 1 minute hard, 1 minute easy. While that will only be 10 minutes of hard stuff it is enough to get your body ready for the Thursday runs:-) Those that are really adventurous can try doing the 20 minutes flat on Tuesday and on a hill on Thursday. If you don’t have access to a long hill and don’t want to drive to one yet just do some hill repeats. However if you are doing repeats don’t make the mistake of running too hard on the downs — a good rule of thumb is not to come down any faster than you went up!
We have worked on an awesome base and if you have run smartly you should be feeling pretty strong. Now lets get fast:-) By getting in 2 to 4 semi-hard runs in before April 11th you will have a lot easier time adjusting to the real Thursday runs.
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NEXT RUN:
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Sunday, March 24, 8:00am — Soda Springs Park
Run out El Paso Blvd and into the GOG. After passing the Balanced Rock turn left up Rampart Range Road until 100 meters past the Antenna. Turn left and head down Williams Canyon 1.25 miles. Turn right at post and head up to Waldo. Turn left at Waldo and head down and return via UPT. 2.5-3.5 hours. If it would take longer don’t do Waldo and continue on down Williams to the park!
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ICers WRITE:
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Randy Lindsey writes:
Just a little note to Steve and Laila in Korea, regarding the air pollution
from all the burning: my brother in Japan tells me that the Japanese word
for “farmer” is derived from the word for “burning.” Everywhere in the
countryside there are little piles of ashes along the roadside where someone
pulled a few weeds and burned them. Autumn is especially bad when they burn
the rice stalks. Too bad they are burning plastic in Korea!
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Passed on by the Trails and Open Space Coalition:
The announcement for this week is that the New Santa Fe Trail through the Air Force Academy opened on Monday, March 18. The trail is open 5:00 a.m. until dark. Please observe all academy requirements and PLEASE stay on the trail.
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Craig Hess writes:
My 100 days in Turkey have come and gone...very quickly I might add. I’ve
been back about two weeks now but was just enjoying some downtime. Been
somewhat sick since I’ve been back and so I’m now wondering if that 16 mile
run at altitude in sub-zero temps the day after I got back had anything to
do with it. I don’t recall reading about that as one of the medically
endorsed steps for jet-lag recovery.
The “Turkey Experience” was all that and then some. As for my observations from Turkey, for those of you thinking of perhaps building your second home there, let me help you make a more informed decision. Parts of Eastern Turkey closely resemble the land that time forgot. Your neighbors will members of typical village clubs: Masons, Shriners, PKK, Al-Queda, etc.
As for occupational safety issues, OSHA, as a concept, is still many, many years away. And OSHA as an actual organization put into practice, well...think many, many decades from now. Until then, one-legged Ali Baba and nine-finger Mustafa will continue to represent a far too large, but unorganized and voiceless minority.
Incirlik Air Base isn’t too bad...it’s just Turkish. The US dollars that have flowed into it over the past 50+ years have really improved it. Still, there’s much room for improvement in the basic infrastructure. Roadwork is interesting to watch. Curb height will very from 2 inches to 2 feet. Makes for interesting running at night since there are no street lamps. All drainage issues are complete afterthoughts.
They are very big on manual labor. Primary occupations include diggers and fillers, and I’m not sure if you can cross-utilize them. Also not sure if they are part of the same union or not, but work comes to a screeching halt if one the two parties are not available. Cro-Magnon and Neolithic tools are still very popular. Bronze age tools are still a big hit too. Mechanized and time efficient tools must still be held up in customs. The Turks are the worst about paperwork and getting things in and out of country. That led to more than one frustrating episode trying to get the mission done.
To be fair though, once you get clear from the Turks that are just trying to
make a buck off of you, the Turkish people way out in the sticks seem to be
very warm and friendly people. No different than most any other peoples on
this planet I’ve met. Turkey is a bit bigger than Texas but with a lot more
variety in terms of landscape. Capadoccia in particular was a very
interesting area.
http://www.fotocesty.cz/turkey/tur07_e.html
http://www.turizm.net/cities/cappadocia/
Another observation included all the force protection measures in Turkey as well as those taken back at the several bases I visited in Germany. These measure have really changed the complexion of the bases. Big, ugly, nasty concrete barriers everywhere. Very disheartening but a sign of things to come if we don’t take the war on terrorism seriously. Should Denver or Boston ever start looking like Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, or even Salt Lake City during the Olympics, then the terrorists have scored in a big way.
Overall the deployment experience was fantastic and I certainly wouldn’t trade it. Managed several rides on AWACS, Rivet Joint and a tanker. Beautiful mountain ranges just north of Iraq although for some reason the Rockies look a little more friendly. And as I once again come home with a renewed sense of appreciation for America, I think I’ve reached a point in my life where I don’t need to revisit too many more stinkholes to have an everlasting appreciation for my country. I hope you all don’t get lazy about keeping some qualified leadership employed in Washington and continue to take an active role in sharing some of your values within your community. (Note — I’ve taken all of my drug-addicted, unemployed, lazy, criminal, extreme left friends off of this particular email list.) “Craig’s Book on Places you need to visit if you’re ever Whining about Life in America” is available on request.
And finally, it sure was enjoyable having a job where you can see results in a matter of days and weeks versus years. Very refreshing. But on the heals of that experience it looks as though my next assignment will be the Pentagon. Is there ever anything accomplished there in days or weeks?? No worries; I’ll make the best of my time in Purgatory. Probably rolling out of here in the fall. Sort of looking forward to it in a perverted sort of way. At least there’s some great running right out the back door and onto the Washington Mall.
I’m off to Boston next month for the marathon. Once again the Kenyans will be able to breath easy as for the third year in a row my body is less than 100% injury-free. Nonetheless, I am still really looking forward to the run. Be safe.
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WWW POST:
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3/17/02 A whole lot of snow did not stop 60 from coming out for a Sunday long run. In fact the snow covered all the ice and made the Barr Trail the easiest it has been to run on in a while! Even the No Name Ice Rink did not pose a problem much to the chagrin of the few who took the detour and got left behind by those that took the chance. On the way down lots of the snow on the trail was already string to melt. Neal Taylor won the T-shirt giveaway held amongst all who showed.
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Go out hard, when it hurts speed up...
Matt Carpenter
http://www.skyrunner.com
Incline Club
http://www.inclinclub.com
Barr Trail Mountain Race
http://www.runpikespeak.com
presented by Pikes Peak National Bank
Friends of the Peak
http://www.fotp.com
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