Month: January 2008

Disappointing 5K PR

I ran the 5 Km race that is tied to one of our local marathons today. It is a route I have run a few times in the past. Until late last night, I was not sure if I was going to try for a PR or not.

I had a friend that might have run with me. If he did, then I would have run with him and not worried about my time. Instead, he had to back out and I decided to go for it.

My previous PR (26:10) was run with a pace of 5:14 per kilometer (8:26 per mile). I wanted to hit 5:06 per kilometer today (8:13 per mile). That would have given me a final time of 25:30. My splits were as follows:

  1. 5:16
  2. 4:58
  3. 5:12
  4. 5:07
  5. 5:35*

The first one was slow due to the crowd. It was not a big crowd**, but I started at the back of the pack. I was not entirely sure on the start time. The official paperwork said 6:45, but when I registered yesterday I was told emphatically it would start at 7:00. At 6:45 I was standing in the back of the starting line pack still warming up when the announcements started for the start of the race. I was stuck in the back and it took me almost 3 blocks to get free. I did not feel bad about the start being slow. That was probably a help.

The second kilometer was faster than my desired pace and made up most of my lost time. Three and four were perfectly boring, but almost the right pace. I felt good going into the last kilometer and was pleased with my performance up to then.

The last kilometer was run well…I thought. I did not notice any slow down and was really only looking to stay on pace and not make up any time. I would have been pleased with shaving 20 seconds off my PR instead of 40 like was planned. Knowing that today was going to be a long day, I intentionally did not try to kill myself on the last kilometer. I just wanted to hold my pace. And I thought I did. But, obviously, I fell off of my pace time and added 29 seconds to my planned pace for that kilometer.

The final result is that, though I got a PR by 1 second, I know I could have done much better. I am disgusted with myself for slowing down so much. I was not dying. I could not have run much faster, but I could have done better than I did. I just can’t believe that I slowed down that much when I have been getting so good with my pacing lately.

*When adding all the times there is a discrepency by 1 second. That is because I did not figure in all the tenths and hundredths of a second.

**I believe there were two factors that caused the crowd to be small. There were only about 60 runners. First is the fact that we started 15 minutes earlier than what we were told yesterday at registration. Second is that the marathon went off at 6:00. The better runners were in that race.

Days of the week

I read a great book a few years ago that explained the names of the days of the week. The book was The Clock We Live On by Isaac Asimov. Then today I read a post at Daily Writing Tips that covered the material again. I just think it is fascinating to see where the names of the days of the week come from, especially as you see it in different languages. Since I know Spanish and English, I will explain them here. If you know another language and how the days are named, then please leave a comment so we can see how they compare. I know there are similarities in different languages.

As a quick primer the names in English and Spanish are:

  • Sunday — Domingo
  • Monday — Lunes
  • Tuesday — Martes
  • Wednesday — Miércoles
  • Thursday — Jueves
  • Friday — Viernes
  • Saturday — Sábado

The book explained (if I remember right) that originally the days of the week had names reflecting celestial objects. That has changed over time and languages. Each object was dominant in the first hour of the day. The cycle is Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon. Each hour is controlled or dominated by that object. Starting at Saturn and counting through the cycle until you reach the 25th hour, and the start of the next day, you land on the Sun. Then through the cycle again, the 25th hour starts the next day dominated by the Moon. Through the week you get Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus then Saturn again.

Sunday started with the sun. In Spanish it is Domingo which comes from the Latin Dies Dominica (Lord’s day).

Monday is the moon. Moon in Spanish is luna. Lunes is the Spanish word for Monday.

Tuesday is a bit convoluted, but it comes from Mars, the god of war. The reason it gets lost in the translation is we take Tuesday from the Germanic god of war, Tiu or Tiwa. In Spanish the day is Martes which comes from the planet Mars which is Marte. The relationship to Tiu, or Tiwa, is that Mars is the god of war.

Wednesday comes from the Germanic god, Woden. It is a bit of a stretch to make Woden and Mercury connect to one another. Suffice it to say that the English Wednesday is named after Woden and the Spanish Miércoles is named after Mercury.

Thursday is named after the god of thunder, Thor. In Spanish it is Jueves and is named after Jupiter who was a Roman god whose power came from his thunderbolt, and thus the connection between Thor and Jupiter.

Friday gets its name from Freya, the Teutonic goddess of love. Viernes in Spanish comes from Venus,  which is the Roman goddesss of love.

Saturday gets its name from the planet Saturn in English whereas the Spanish Sábado comes from the word sabbath.

The book, The Clock We Live On is very interesting. It not only talked about the days of the week, but why the day is broken into 24 hours and how different words came to be used the way they are. I specifically remember that ‘minute’ gets its name because it is a small part of an hour (Latin minuta = small part of something). And ‘second’ gets its name because it was the second division of the hour. I am serious, that is really where the name comes from. Pretty lame, huh?

Unfortunately the book is not available new. You can dig around at Amazon and find it used.

Review: The War of the Worlds

There are some authors that I just want to like, but can’t really get into. H. G. Wells is one of them. I think the first book I read of his was The Time Machine. I don’t know if I finished that one. I think I may have finished The Invisible Man. I know I did not make it through The Island of Doctor Moreau.

I have finally thrown in the towel on The War of the Worlds. I am not giving up easily, I made it 150 pages into the book. It is a book that I really wanted to like.

I torture myself with some books just because they are supposed to be classics and “must read” material.

As much as I did not like the content, I do have to say that it is well written. Or, at least I think it is. He does a good job of writing, but there are two things I don’t like about it. I am more of a Jules Verne type of fiction reader. Wheres Verne tries to explain in detail why something works the way it does (even though you know it can’t), Wells requires you to make assumptions and just accept that what he says is true. I realize that approach is the norm in fiction, and particularly science fiction, but that is probably the reason I dislike fiction. Even if something is not true, I like to read a book that tries to convince me it is.

The second thing I don’t like about Wells’ style is very typical of books from his time period and before. There is an assumption that I have nothing better to do with my time than read their words. These stories move too slowly. I would prefer the comic book version: more pictures, fewer words. I don’t mind reading big books (though the shorter the better), but I want to get to the point of the story quickly. Or at least keep moving along.

While I can accept the assumption that Martians have invaded the earth, I need a bit more convincing that the slugs which are trapped from the first landing become a major force in the world in just a few hours. They were all but dead upon landing.

The kicker was when I got to the end of the story and he says “Oh, here is the second part of the book. I told you what happened to my brother and how the story ended, now I will tell you what happened to me.” Huh? If I know how it ends, why would I keep reading? I didn’t.

This is not really a fair review since it is pretty obvious I am not a fiction reader. However, this book would certainly not make me want to become one.

Wells, I am sorry, but you are just not for me.

The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells, NYRB publishers, 250 pages.

Here is the MP3 of the Orson Welles audio version.

Happy New Year!

New year’s eve party
We had a good time last night at some friends’ house. We are not much for staying up and ringing in the new year. I do stay up past midnight quite often, so it is not unusual for me to be up for the change of day/year, but not my family. Last night was a rare treat. Our friends threw together a last minute bash and called us yesterday afternoon. Our family, theirs and another missionary family met together about 8:00 to sit and talk in the new year.

We had too many snacks and candy. We did run out of drinks though. When you have 19 people hitting off of just 13 liters of Coke, Sprite and Diet Coke for 4+ hours, you tend to run out.

Shortly before midnight we walked our party down to the park to shoot off our fireworks. The noise was impressive. Most of the neighbors just shot theirs off in the streets. We were the only ones at the park.

Traditions
One of the customs here is they take a piñata that is an old man. He represents the old year. You burn the old man. Often they will fill him with fireworks and as he burns the thing explodes quite violently and impressively. The neighbor’s party had one and we watched from behind the crowd as he exploded. When the explosions got more violent, the Mexicans were running and hiding behind the Americans. I think that was because the Americans did not have enough sense to get further back.

We saw people carrying suitcases, which is a representation of having a prosperous year of traveling. We were told, but did not see, that the people will eat 12 grapes which represent having a blessed 12 months of the coming year. Another tradition that we did not see is that the people will throw a bucket of water out into the street. That represents throwing out all the problems from the previous year.

First run of the year
We got home a bit after 1:00 and I got to bed pretty quickly so that I could get a good start on the year’s running. I did an 8.6 mile run. That is the longest run I have had in some time.

New year’s day party
Today we were invited over to the house of another set of friends. With parents that live here in town and a visiting set of parents, there were 13 of us to eat lunch, play games and generally have a good time. This family is the family that is our closest friends here in town. We really have been blessed to have so many good friends around us.