Mary Munford Elementary
Another entry for the coffee table book of Running Haikus.
Off we go down Grove
Tron vest glowing flashing red
Iris is true darkness
Ascent from campus
Ran with Fudd and Honey Do
Our pace was cruising
Pucker ran extra
Doubling back for Two Can
Swipe right! Now missing!
Singer is ready
Perfect day for a PR
Richmond half is yours
Time to Taper,
Lockjaw
We had runners and bikers of all different distances and routes. All bases were covered.
Runners took the following routes with some arriving early for their bonus miles.
4 Milers
5 and 6 Milers
Gomer Pyle took us out.
NMS:
The Pax was moving fast this morning with elite runners in both the 5s and 6s. It was good to see Phonics, Offshore, and Wheelie on the roads again.
Both the runners and bikers had a couple of challenges this morning. Circle K took a flat tire in the wrong neighborhood. Fortunately, the F3 racing team had parts and pump to get him repaired and moving again. After running the mile of death down Dabney, a car at Wawa came close to Phonics. Even in a well lit area, if a driver isn’t looking for a runner, they aren’t going to see them.
Speaking of mile of death, Dabney lived up to expectations with potholes and a constant caravan of cement and beer trucks. Colbeer!
Finally, the name of the backblast. There was a strong and pleasant smell of cupcakes or some other Hostess product on a stretch of Dabney. Then of course we had Krispy Kreme as we came up Staples Mill. Labrat talked me out of grabbing a few dozen for the Pax on the return to the AO.
Time to Taper,
Lockjaw
A sweet sixteen arose today for some crisp running weather and hopefully faster speeds. We did Reverse Carillon routes of the 4, 5, and 6 variety with a little “catch me if you can” at the end down Grove.
Marv took us out.
NMS:
The is YHC’s home stretch to close out the year’s Q of RAMM (for the most part). Come back with a classic route, the Reverse Carillon, and a classic theme song, Back in Black. Besides, YHC was wearing all black and dark grey today so the title is appropriate there as well. Note to self: Get a reflective vest or light. As Labrat said, “You must not like your family running in all black and no light.” Point taken.
Perfect weather for a run.
Time to Taper,
Lockjaw
A Charlie Foxtrot group of 20?!? came to embrace the morning, including a pair of rifty’s that included one visitor from the Dirty South (Gator) and his twin from a different mother, FNG Steve (Ralphy). They were greeted with maps….uh oh.
Route:
All routes took a serpentine pattern thru the neighborhood on the north side of the school, in between Grove and Patterson. Basically follow this:
-East on Grove, turn left, then next left on Hanover. Follow to end.
-Go right, then right on to Stuart. East on Stuart to either Antrium (4 miler) or Hamilton.
-Left then left on to Kensington. West until end. Right, then right until Eastbound on Leonard. 5 Milers return to home base at Woodlawn.
–6 milers continue on to Hamilton, left up to Patterson, then come home on Commonwealth.
NMS:
-The route: Leonard threw most a curve ball, including YHC. It seems that there is a cut-thru that would take you over to Leonard, but most of us ran down the alley. But, you can only get so lost back there…no matter how bad you screw up, you are still within a mile from Munford. YHC liked the route. Expect to see it again, pax.
-The gravel roads and weaving thru the neighborhood reminded YHC very much so of his first two failed attempts to post to RAMM, which he was a couple minutes late. He weaved his way thru a very similar route to this morning looking for the pax (which were probably just running up and down Grove). Lab Rat has been thinking about this route for quite a while and finally took the time to lay it out on map my run.
-The run: most of the 5 milers bunched up, with BT setting the pace early and Shakedown pushing the home stretch. The main pax was Lab Rat, Gator, Ralphie, BIG Tennessee, Shakedown, and Swirly for a minute. Speaking of Swirly, he fell out of the lead pack when he had to drop trousers in the alley. Hilarity ensued when we all found out….this rolled in to a discussion of how you could use a sprinkler as a bidet, and how far you should put it up there…..as always TYA was the expert in all things regarding putting things in your butt.
-Winklevoss posted for the third time this week! Much respect, brother! He was a little late getting back to the VSF, so while waiting for him, Swirly went on a Tourettes-esque rant about his name. It was quite impressive, even for Swirly!
-There was much discussion of SEC football on the group run this morning. We had to shut it down when BT got extremely jealous that USC and UGA had a bye week this week, but UT had to play. That could be the apology of the week……but………
Apology of the week goes to the guy that is going to have to clean off the back of his picket fence later on today. If Lab Rat would have known the “pressure” that Swirly was under, he could have planned a route past Starbucks. On the bright side, think about how big of a carrot he could grow there!
Lab Rat apologizes…
Lockjaw’s 11 showed for the crisp fall running weather and left with so much more.
YHC took us out.
Main is a one-way west bound street which means runners always have cars at their backs. This becomes a harrowing situation for about a mile or so. Per Lab Rat’s advice, we called an audible and cut over to Cary St for our parallel return route. Even that route was not without danger as a van hopped the curb and parked in front of us to make deliveries.
Beware Friday the 13th.
Time to Taper,
Lockjaw
14 Studs posted for a morning in the gloom at Mary Mumford. Weather was 70 and sunny.
The Thang
5 milers, right on grove, left on Malvern, left on Patterson, Left on St. Christophers, Left on Three Chopt, Left on Grove. Six milers same route except left on Roseneath instead of Malvern.
NMM
Swirly and Singer did the 8+ mile route this morning, getting in 3 on Grove pre run. They are definitely gearing up for something. Gomer Pyle was flying today. He passed YHC with over a mile to go and I did not see Sippy and Splinter for another 5 minutes. Hutton ran with me for about half the run until he got bored with my pace (or lack of talking). Next time, he will have pick Lab Rat as a companion. Welcome Mongoose to the fold. He joined the bikers on their route today and seemed to survive.
There seems to be something going on with South Siders. I have given up trying to give Lugnut directions as her generally ignores them from the get go. Today’s instructions were pretty simple, Five turns, all lefts. The were on mostly major roads as well, so pretty simple to follow. Honeymoon, completely ignored my route and made a route of his own that was 5.5 miles. I blame him for pulling Spit (a Daville boy) into the same route. I am going to have to start posting to the southside runs and see what happens over there?
Ok, so the name. I am trying to emulate LockJaw (insert your favorite tapering joke here) and his naming techniques. He always has a fancy name for the route, and to my knowledge, it has little to do with anything (he might argue otherwise, but despite my 12 years in public schools, 4 years in college and 2 years in grad school I can’t follow the logic). So, I like the name Weehawken as I did some consulting there in the past, so the route gets its name.
Announcements:
Don’t forget Viral tool bank event this weekend
Hampton roads anniversary and a Cville 4 mile mens run coming up
TYA Out
17 strong posted for Ramm and Ramm Gears this morning We di the Old School route (A tribute to our Grandfathers as Marv likes to say) …. Respect!!
4 milers Grove to Malvern – turn back to Three Chopt – Turn back to Mary
5 milers Grove to Roseneath turn back to Three Chopt – turn back to Mary
6 milers Grove to Boulevard – turn back to Three Chopt – turn back to Mary.
Ramm Gears – Crushed some miles on the bikes !
Wedding Singer took us out.
Announcements : 12 mile run Saturday – please keep our brothers – TYA, LabRat, and Hardywood in your thoughts – go get it boys – we are with you in spirit !
Convergence : Sept 30 – 6-8 and Gridiron – come on out for a 2hr beatdown and invite someone to come with you to celebrate 3 years F3RVA! ( No dogpile everybody go to Gridiron)
Tuckahoe Takeover – begins tomorrow and goes through the week….. Looking forward to it….
See y’all in the gloom..
Sixteen mighty ran
Lockjaw called Haiku for all
Upchuck lights the way
Pair by pair we ran
To the Spider Run and back
It’s dark in the woods
Leave your haiku in the post to celebrate the run.
Ricky Bobby took us out.
Announcements:
ABT,
Lockjaw
Four steely horsemen saddled up and secured their headlamps for the latest edition of the RAMM (no takers on RAMM Gears). With temps fluttering just below sunny and 70 (but nonetheless extremely comfortable), here’s how it went down…YHC surveyed the group (4 milers?, 5 milers?, 6 milers?) and found a consensus to run in a pack…reverse Carillon, 5 mile route. BT and Splinter set forth with long strides while Sippy Cup and YHC maintained a steady 1.5 strides per BT/Splinter stride, and still fell behind (YHC was clearly the anchor). 45 minutes later…all was done.
Number-rama, Name-a-rama, announcements, and YHC took us out.
Announcements:
BRR starts today…keep those guys in mind
Reese-Strong 5k next weekend…sign up now
Convergence Sept 30th from 6-8 (or just come for an hour). Location = Gridiron
Sign up for 2018 BRR starts Monday…see TYA
Moleskin
With Swirly dispatched to monitor the 209 mile AO that is the BRR, YHC took it upon himself to arrive early to evaluate the AO this morning. YHC arrived at MM at 2:13 a.m. (is that a record, Corporate?) on the way home from the airport. All was clear and in order. YHC considered just sleeping there, but figured Richmond’s Finest might object, so YHC dispatched himself homeward for some zzz’s. Returning at 5:22 a.m., all remained in order, essentially unchanged (same cars, same spots). “Nichts zu berichten.” YHC parked in Swirly’s spot with BT pulling into TYA’s.
YHC appreciated Sippy Cup down shifting today to keep up with YHC’s pace. Not only is YHC thankful for the company, but YHC was absolutely fascinated by Sippy’s descriptions of protein level cancer research. Sippy had better start running faster or he has doomed himself to six months of YHC’s questions. Inspiring stuff. YHC will never call a statistical distribution “normal” again – the word is Gaussian. YHC will demonstrate by using it in a sentence, “I’ll take ‘Gaussian Distributions’ for $1,000, Alex.” It’s also highly possible that YHC has botched this example and / or the spelling.
All else aside, YHC was expecting today to be a tough one after a long day (including the wee hours arrival) spent preparing in south Florida for Hurricane Irma with his work team. YHC then spent several hours in the Miami International Airport, where the human cocktail contained inexperienced travelers galore dragging along kids, grandparents, in-laws, and seemingly every pet or animal-that-passes-for-a-pet (macaw, anyone?) in south Florida. YHC found himself watching exasperated travelers, many appearing to be of reasonable means, exhorting ticketing agents for special treatment to get kids, grandparents, in-laws, and seemingly every pet or animal-that-passes-for-a-pet onto a flight to anywhere out of the storm’s path. In the word’s of one traveler, with not a drop hyperbole,”If I can’t get out, I might die here.” This seemingly had little impact on the agent, who YHC guesses was planning to ride out the storm “here,” and clearly wanted to say,”I might die here too.” YHC realized his own need for sensitivity training when his in-flight beverage arrived ‘with ice’ when the request was ‘no ice.’ On second thought, anything on the way to a safe spot will be just fine. In general, a sobering reminder of the gifts YHC enjoys in his life (roof, food, great family, safe place for family, and opportunity to “leave” when the going gets tough). YHC suggests loading both barrels with prayers this weekend for the folks in Florida and the Caribbean who have or are going to experience a monster of nature’s power multiple exponents greater than anything most of us have seen. TV won’t do it justice.
Final note: happy birthday to my mom…a spry 78 today. Thanks for being you (Yeah, I said it. My mom reads my back blasts. What’s it to you?)
A record 24 said no to tapering and showed up for an end of summer Lockjaw run.
Mosey to the TJ track and divide into groups of three with approximate comparable abilities.
As a part of a relay team, everyone completes two 600M runs and six 200M runs. Focus on speed and form.
Mosey back to the VSF.
NMS
BRR talk is in the air. In one week precisely, the teams will begin the race. These teams are ready for what’s in store.
Relay running for speed work is a great way to push oneself. Some of the relay team membership was in flux as we lost our hand off partners and found new ones. Everyone got a good workout. You can see the speed demon’s silhouettes from the light of Broad Street. Impressive.
Everyone seemed to go all out on the last 200M run. There were pulled hammys and other ailments. Upchuck converted his Explorer to an impromptu SAG wagon and collected a record number of injured. Hopefully a little ice will lead to full recovery.
Time to Taper,
Lockjaw