8/29: Yeah, they just can't get enough.

There are a million and one ways to get injured when you run in a big city. The sidewalks are uneven, the delivery vans back up into alleys without looking, everybody wearing an iPod can't hear you coming and drifts towards the middle of the sidewalk, people take right turns without looking, bears, etc.

Every now and then, you go for a run and you suddenly feel as though you took a wrong turn into a life insurance commercial. This morning, I was almost run over three separate times, one young lady heard me coming late and almost threw her coffee on me trying to get out of the way, two young people threw open their car doors and almost took my knees out, and I was sprayed by a guy cleaning the sidewalk. Thank goodness the bears were hibernating, right?

I ran 4.4 miles in approximately 30:14, which ends up being about 6:51 per mile. This isn't a bad time considering a) city running, b) no extensive stretching at the beginning.

Running Music: The Hold Steady's first album: ...Almost Killed Me. I fell for The Hold Steady when I got Boys and Girls in America, I fell in love with them with Separation Sunday, and I just sorta liked ...Almost Killed Me. Now I realize that the last four songs on ...Almost Killed Me constitute the best 4 song set in The Hold Steady's repertoire. Hostile, Mass., Sketchy Metal, Payne Avenue, and Killer Parties. Highly, highly recommended. Killer Parties is one of the best album-enders out there. I dare you to not rock out to the last two songs like crazy.

Big ups today go to Ian for his successful run at the Livestrong 5K. Not only did Ian run over twice as far as he had during his entire training regimen, but he did it while clothed from head to toe in matching black and yellow Livestrong gear (save the headband, which wasn't black and yellow but came in the Livestrong SWAGbag.) Ian took a breather after the first mile, dropping the instantly classic excuse: "I was not prepared for this" (delivered while gasping for air.) Somehow, someway - probably by selling his soul to Tyra Banks - Ian recovered and put up a damn good pace for the last two miles. It is absurdly hard to run three miles if you have run a total of 1.5 miles in training. Maybe this isn't exactly the sort of feat that a triathlete blog would normally celebrate, but that's a pretty impressive achievement to me.

big UPS!