The BC run

I’ve been kind of thinking about my Boston College (BC) run all week actually. It’s west from where I live and far west of where I end up (gym for post run stuff), so I don’t run it that often. The nice thing about the run is that it has it all a city run can offer — hills, the reservoir, beautiful old architecture, etc. BC has a beautiful small campus feeling, one I miss from my undergraduate days, and one that some of the other schools in Boston (you know who you are) certainly don’t have. Anyway, the total distance this morning, in 94% humidity, was 7.62 miles, which took me 1:01:23. When I stopped, I had steam rising from my shoulders, and I’m not going to lie, it makes you feel like a bad ass. Not a bad run to start the day. Here’s the route:

The first Spanish treble

Today was a special day for FC Barcelona, my favorite football club in the Spanish La Liga, as we beat the defending UEFA Champions League champs, Manchester United. While United controlled the first ten minutes early on, Samuel Eto’o made a beautiful move on the right edge of the box and put one past Edwin Van der Sar, completely changing the tide of momentum to Barca’s favor. There would be no recovery for ManU, who looked downtrodden and out even by the end of the first half. Too often United’s long ball missed its mark, while Barca controlled the midfield. ManU turned the ball over often in its own half and looked disorganized throughout. The second goal in the 70th minute told the story of a dejected United, as the ball somehow found Leo Messi’s head and then looped over van der Sar. I don’t remember ever seeing Messi score off of a header, and it wasn’t pretty this time. But a goal is a goal, and it would end there, at 2-0. My player of the game was undoubtedly Barca captain Carlos Puyol, who played a drifting, almost midfield role that was enabled by the lack of offense from ManU. He was perfect all night, making plays and passes exactly where they were needed. While Iniesta had his flashes of brilliance as usual, it was certainly Puyol’s leadership that created so much space and shut down Manchester United so effectively this evening.

While it wasn’t the prettiest final in history, it completed a storybook season for Pep Guardiola’s FC Barcelona, as they found themselves at the top of the table in La Liga, winning the Copa del Rey, and finally winning the UEFA Champion’s League today. It’s the first time in history that a Spanish team has won the fabled treble, and what a phenomenal season it’s been.

Why Kobe is still the best in basketball

It’s true that LeBron James is the future of basketball. His time is coming but not quite here. To watch Kobe Bryant play tonight reminded me of what leadership on the court looks like. Kobe takes the inevitable double team and spreads the ball out to his teammates, trusting in them to make the shots or the right plays. With that kind of trust from their team leader, they are free to just play. This is in stark contrast to the Cavs right now, where LeBron appears to think that he can will his team to victory. While that might have worked in the regular season on occasion, the Magic aren’t falling that easily. Only when LeBron is able to lead like Kobe has learned will LeBron even be in the same league, in my estimation.

Do you believe in Magic?

I have been a Boston Celtics fan for far longer than seems appropriate. However, I’ve watched our team’s performance after this year’s All-Star break deteriorate rapidly, and we haven’t been playing championship ball since the first half of the season. To have made it as far into the playoffs as we did was surprising. When we played the Orlando Magic, it was clear to me that they were the better side, despite the series taking all seven games to decide. Additionally, it seemed clear that the Cleveland Cavaliers, who had steamrolled through the playoffs, would have crushed our already beat and battered C’s squad. Perhaps in four. So silently, a lot of Boston fans whispered, “Thanks be to the Magic.”

Now that Orlando are up 3-1 in this series, in several close games including last night’s OT thriller, I am finally starting to believe that they can close things out — perhaps even on Thursday. Their coach, Stan Van Gundy, must relay the urgency of their situation very plainly. Win on Thursday.

All of my Ohio friends ask the question, why do I want the Cavs to fail? It’s true, the Cavs are having a stellar season. It’s true, LeBron will be one of the best ever in the NBA. (Yes, ever.) But looking at the stats from the Cavs last two losses to the Magic, and my problem with the Cavs becomes clear. In Game 3, LeBron scored 41 points. Game 4, 44 points. In Game 3, the Cavs had only two other double digit scorers, at 15 and 12 points each. Combined, it takes the next 5 players to equal the scoring output of one LeBron James. So what? So, they lost Game 3. Contrast this with the winning Magic, who had four starters and one sub in doubles. Game 4 went into OT, of course, so others had a chance to get into double digits for the Cavs. Nevertheless, LeBron scored 44 points. And the Cavs lost. While he definitely had 7 assists and is undoubtedly a team player, it seems clear from the last two games that he needs to trust his team more. A great player cannot just change the game single handedly. A great player learns that to win one must give his team the confidence to step up and lead them into victory. That seems to be missing right now. The Cavs are not a bad group of players. But like the Fresh Prince, their entire game strategy simply cannot be, Pass it to LeBron.

The great restraint

I read somewhere this weekend that it’s good not to train at your max capacity (in terms of effort or heart rate), and I wondered if I could take an easy run and keep within a certain heart rate (HR) zone. I’ve measured my max heart rate around 205, and most of my runs are done in the 180-190 range on average, which is very high. Anything from 170-180 feels “good,” and anything below that feels easy. I decided I might try a longer run today and peg my HR between 160 and 170 for the entire duration of the run. While it absolutely drove me nuts to restrain, it allowed me to go 14.25 miles at an 8:54 pace.

This is in contrast to my 3.5 miler yesterday, in which each split was faster than the one before it, by about 10 seconds per mile. Overall I averaged 7:35 min/mi, which isn’t breaking any land speed record but isn’t too shabby for me, either.

I certainly could not have sustained the 14 miles at this pace, but I read that one can actually get faster if you continue to train at a certain HR, which seems unintuitive to me. Here’s to the great experiment of human physiology, I suppose.

The run today could not have been more perfect, as the weather was about 15 degrees F cooler than it had been in previous days, holding steady from around 50 to 55 F for two hours. I went down from the Allston/Brookline border to Jamaica Pond and looped around and went up Huntington to the Boston Commons. From there, I went out to the harbor and made my way West via the river. I crossed the Mass Ave bridge and then continued on the Cambridge side for awhile, before crossing the BU bridge and ending up at the gym. Here’s the route:

An approximation of sub-5

Big disclaimer. I’m only now beginning to really appreciate that different distances of running have drastically different paces. It’s not immediately obvious, however, exactly how to characterize the non-linearity, but the evidence is clear. If Usain Bolt, the current 100 m world record holder, were to be able to run 1.6 km at his WR pace, he’d have a 2:35 mile time, which is not even close to anything reasonable right now*, as the current mile record is 3:43. So it’s clear that different distances are run differently. Naturally, this affects training, energy expenditure, mental stamina, etc.

Okay. Now that’s all out of the way, and it’s perfectly clear I’m not making any wild claims, after my run this morning, I went to our indoor track today and timed a 1/7 of a mile at 43 seconds. IF I were able to sustain that pace for a full mile (7 times longer than what I had run), I would have run a 5:01 mile.

I decided to try it again, just to see how I felt. 42 seconds. Again, IF I were able to sustain that pace for a full mile, that would have been a 4:54. That feeling is exhilarating. For forty seconds, I felt like I was flying. Importantly, these times are not particularly fast for this distance (an elite time is approximately half of that). To think, the elite marathoners sustain that pace for 182 times longer than what I ran. It gives me great humility to try and understand that.

So, I got a taste. I’m pretty sure I like it, but I’m not sure if it’s good for me yet.

* I won’t claim that it will never be possible. I’d be very surprised by it, however. Haile Gebreselassie, who has broken 24 WRs and is the current marathon WR holder at 2:03:59 (!), believes that a 2:00:00 marathon is possible. I certainly it happens within my lifetime.

Wolfram Alpha

I dunno, I’m not really impressed: