I had a wonderful time at the Chicago Monster Half-Marathon yesterday, and I managed to execute my plan pretty well for a while. I was a few minutes behind my goal pace at mile 4, and resigned myself to a new plan, in which I would NOT break 2 hours, but would enjoy myself and the beautiful city I was running in. I was thinking of this race like a 10K, and was sure I wouldn't have enough time to make up my pace. Turns out that 13.1 miles is a long way. My friends Zosia and Jason overtook me before mile 5 and they were running faster than the people I had settled in with. Immediately I joined them, pushed a little, and found myself back on track by mile 9. I was feeling unstoppable at that point, so I left Zosia to chase after Jason, who had escaped earlier, and that was where I made my big mistake. I caught him shortly before mile 11, and ran hard with him for a few minutes - but I had overdone it, and dropped back with ITB pain and sort of hobbled in the rest of the way. I did make my time goal, finishing in 1:58:19, but I surely am tired and sore now. We'll see how long my recovery takes this time around - I do know that I enjoyed this race more and for longer than I did my previous half-marathon effort, and I think I could have finished stronger if I hadn't foolishly gone so hard between miles 9 and 11. It's hard to resist the impulse to run fast when I feel so good, which seems to be a big part of the challenge of distance running.
I've mentioned before that I started out on the piano by figuring out melodies. Connecting notes and trying to learn how they worked. I'm fascinated to observe that Zoe's initial approach to the instrument is totally different from mine. She sits at our new piano and plays random notes, and tells us what to feel. If she is playing slowly then the music is sad, and we should cry. When we are "crying" she either gets up and hugs us so we feel better (so awesome!) or bangs faster, to indicate that the music is now happy and we should dance. Her other piano game is accompanying herself - she plays "chords" in alternating hands while she "sings" the ABC song or Camptown Races or Sesame Street. She makes us sing along. She loves it when we clap at the end. When I was little I wanted to know how music worked. Although I make my living as a performer now, I learned about the interpersonal aspects of music later. Her immediate interest is in ...
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