Friday, September 11, 2009

Bringing It Inside For The Rain

On the plan today was 5 miles. I was hoping to get 'em done early, however, it was a dreary, wet and rainy morning - and my pillow called me to return.

I was able to get the 5 miles in at lunchtime. I decided to go to the gym even though when I left the house there was a break in the rain. I had checked the radar map and it looked like rain was returning - and I didn't feel like getting a soaked today.

I dialed in a 11:00/mile pace with a 1.5% incline. According to my running log, this should have been pretty easy - but for some reason it didn't feel that easy today. My heart rate was fine - started in the high 130s/low 140s - but it just felt like work instead of gliding along.

Luckily, I had some good tunes with me. The other day I had my iPod on shuffle albums, and Styx's Paradise Theater came up. After listening to that, I really wanted to hear Kilroy Was Here - I had this on cassette when I was in middle school and I listed to it so much that the tape wore out! I hadn't listened to this album in a good 10 years (maybe 20???), so I wasn't sure how I would react. Would I still enjoy it? Would it be totally cheesy? Well...yes and yes ;-)

What I found pretty remarkable is that parts of this concept album resonated very similar to recently released concept album Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown. Themes of "the establishment" pushing their view of morality on the masses and the anti-establishment youth shunning their propaganda in order to create a better world. I almost forgot that in the world of the Styx album - released in 1983 - the "establishment" was that of the Communist bloc (one of the lyrics in the song "Double Life" talks about the Berlin Wall...which was still standing at the time!). Kind of ironic given what is being said (see #11) by the "establishment" that is referred to in Green Day's album. I'll stop here as I don't want this to become a political blog...
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I have a really busy weekend to look forward to. Shabbat dinner tonight and then once the kid-os are asleep, Sherry and I will get to watch Glee! Tomorrow morning I'm reading torah at synagogue, we're hosting our "lunch bunch" group for lunch, the Michigan/Notre Dame game is on and I have an Israeli Dance gig in the evening. Sunday morning, I'm getting up dark and early (I'd say bright and early, but the sun will still not be up yet...) to get 5 miles in before the Parks Half Marathon. After the run, my son's school has a picnic and later in the afternoon we're going to watch the Redskins! I am ready for some football!!!!

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