(insert clever bullet point title here)

Not much going on in The Land of RazZDoodle. I'm attributing it to the fact that I don't have any races this summer, I'm not working on speed, I'm not teasing my readers into thinking I'm going to do a steeplechase, I'm not pregnant, I'm not going to sign up for a tri without even training for it, I'm not doing research, etc.

I'm just not all that interesting.

That being said, I'll just puke up some bullet points and see where it leads:

• Beautiful run this morning. And by that, I mean the unexpected woman that ran my route. Wow. I mean, wow.
  
• I'm getting faster (insert joke here). I don't know how it happened, but it did. At the beginning of the summer, I told myself I was going to dabble in speedwork. "Dabble" might be a generous word for what I did. I did intervals regularly for about 3 weeks and then it went to every other week. I don't think I want to attribute my speed to that. I'm going to guess it may have been the PED's I got from David Ortiz....er....Manny Ramirez....er....Alex Rodriguez.....er.....Roger Clemens....er....Sammy Sosa...er.....hell with it. The list is just too damn long.
  
• My local running store is looking for part-time work, but I have to be available nights, weekends and days. The hell?
• I had a dead Garmin for last weekend's long run, so I went with the ol' Timex Ironman. That was the smoothest run I've had in awhile. I checked it every mile or so to see if I was on pace, but that was about it.
• I'm officially addicted to Pandora. It's fascinating and creepy in a Big Brother sort of way. Check it out if you haven't already.
  

That's it. That's all I have. Well, except for this week's SSTIFY entry. Technically, it hasn't been stuck in my head, but it's a great song to start out the weekend. If you aren't hip to these guys (you'll understand the pun soon), you should be. Great on CD, better live. Enjoy!

Does Not Play Well With Others

I tried to be a good group runner. I really did. Turns out, I don't like groups and groups don't like me.

At camp last week, I was declared one of the "leaders" for a daily morning run for the campers. A fellow instructor was the other leader. My Tom to his Jerry, so to speak. When we arrived on Sunday, we were talking about the running group. He said we'd start at 6am every morning, see who shows up, and go from there. No problem. I was looking forward to getting the miles in and chattin' it up whilst doing it. Before dinner, he "casually" mentioned that he was "going to get a quick 8 miles in before dinner." I casually looked at my watch and it read "3:50pm". We had to meet at 5pm to get to dinner. There was no way he was going to get in an 8 miler and be ready for dinner by 5pm, right?

He was in the lobby at 5:02pm.

Gulp.

One of two things ran through my mind:

1. He cut his 8 miler short
2. I'm screwed on these runs.

Run #1 - 6am
6 campers, 2 instructors. We established a route and I conferred with the other instructor.

"What if we have some stragglers?" I asked, hoping that he didn't realize that I was referring to me.
"I'll slow it down so we can stay together." He assured me.

For one block, he stayed with us. And for that one block, I was at a 6:30/mile pace. Then, he just took off. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Yeah, that ain't happenin'. And it didn't happen for 5 of the other campers, either. What was worse was that all of them had headphones. So, here I am, a 30+ year old male, running with 5 females early in the morning and all I'm thinking is that the better part of downtown Lincoln is thinking I'm the biggest creeper cuz I'm heading up the group leaving no one behind (pun intended?).

As enticing as that would sound, I got b-o-r-e-d. No conversation, a 9:30/mile pace and no one to talk to. Even my own student tuned me out. Maybe she was still pissed I beat her out at our last race.

Towards the end of this run, I figured the girls could hoof it for the remaining .5 miles and I broke off to go around our esteemed capitol building (a.k.a.- The Penis of the Plains and/or The Prick of the Prarie). Day 2 - 2 campers
We had given the campers a lot of stuff to do, so I figured after Day 1, we wouldn't have the same turnout. Hell, I almost didn't show up, BUT I'm a team guy. Almost the same thing happened, other instructor takes off and I run with the 2 girls. This time, though, they didn't have headphones and we had a little better convo. I think they were pushing it (9:00/mile), but they were troopers. We looped back to the dorm and I went about another mile just to make it respectable.

The verdict: I don't know if I'm cut out to be a group runner. If someone asked me to run with them, I would but I think I dig having some Quality RazZDoodle Time.

My SSTIFY is Back!

I'm back from camp....and I've had this song in my head all week. Big thanks to the students to keep this going the whole week:

Your Weekend Run

Listen to the latest episode of Banned on the Run. I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. It's either that or listen to stupid music that may or may not be well written and/or composed.

Have a good weekend everyone. I'm off to Lincoln to be a Camp Instructor. 125 budding Journalism Geeks. Yours truly will be inspiring young campers from Monday to Thursday. Not only that, but I'm also heading up the camp's morning running group. The hell? The Counselor is on Facebook and she deduced that, since I'm an avid runner, I'd love to run with some of the campers. If anyone has read this blog for any period of time, they know I don't play well with others. I'm going to make them meet me by 5:30am. That should ensure that no one shows up. I'm like Bill Murray's character in Meatballs. Am I the only one that remembers Meatballs?

Hopefully, I can keep the little Geeks occupied to bang out a post whilst I'm down in the Land of Husker.

41-30

If anyone needs any Husker gear for the upcoming 2009 Big 12 North championship season, let me know.

You Know What I Need?

Some people are against blogging just to blog.

I am not that person.

Some people enjoy the sound of their voice, I enjoy the look of Helvetica 12 for all to see*. There are a few "jumping off points" that I've considered, but they really haven't taken hold. Unfinished thoughts here on ROATM? No way! Hastily put together blog posts? Nuh uh! RazZDoodled? Hilarious! Here are just a few nuggets that I've been rolling around in my head:

The Weather Post
We all mention it at some point either now or in late-January. Really, what is there to say? I figure when you laid stakes down at your current place of residence, you knew what you were getting into. When I lived down in Phoenix, people always complained about the heat and/or it being landlocked. Is it my fault you didn't pass geography class in 5th grade? No. It is not. It's hot...it's cold. Most of us deal with it and keep running. Good for us.

The Cyclist vs. Runner Post
As much as it pains me to admit it, Vanilla did a fairly good job about bridging the gap between runners and cyclists in his latest post. He did fail to mention that most of them think they're Lance. They're not Lance. They're a comproller by day that rolls around on the weekend in their Fruit Stripe-like garb and their silence as they pass on the left. Douchebags.

The How's the Training Going? Post
My pre-training for the training schedule is going along swimmingly, thankyouverymuch. I'm trying to get my 3 days/week of running and plan to add a fourth day this week. When I start my actual training program you all will be the first to know.

The Product Review Post
There should be another product review post soon. And, this time, I hope to do it right except for those that called me out the last time. I'd link to all of you at this point, but I'm too lazy to go into my own archives.

The Banned on the Run episode review Post
Shameless promotion coming soon.

The STIFFY Post
Kids songs and non-copyrighted music don't make for very good posts although I should've posted the laundry commercial that uses Berlin's Take My Breath Away as their music vehicle. That was a matter of time, wasn't it?

Look! Mr. Cranky and Mr. Cynical made guests appearances today!

I need to get back to school. That way, I can fill pointless meetings and classes with blog reading and blog posts. Now, I'm too busy catching up on my DVR shows, playing golf, running, picking my nose and leaving it in my belly button cuz I'm too lazy to eat it or throw it away, etc. You know, the important stuff.

*Or whatever font it is. I'm not a graphic artist for chrissakes.

Well....

I'm tired of seeing my last post up there for an entire week and I can only imagine how you've all eagerly anticipated my pithy observations here on ROATM. Thing is, I have none. At least, not right now. I'm a lot like Xenia, actually save for them fancy book references.

Nevertheless, I feel compelled to write something for you people. A few observations from the holiday weekend:

• One day of people watching at Adventureland (amusement park in Des Moines) reminded me a lot of my post about limitations. Y-I-K-E-S.
  
• People in the state of Iowa are horrible drivers. Absolutely horrible. Not some of them....all of them.
  
• My son is exceptionally loud. One of the weapons in my arsenal as a parent and teacher is my really loud whistle. 9 times out of 10, it gets people's attention. My whistle has nothing on KidDoodle2's set of lungs. It's particularly effective in a car. For 2 hours. Both ways.
• A look back on my running log shows that I've slacked a bit. Not that I needed to look at the log. I'm fairly aware of my running sans technology. I'm committing myself to train before I actually have to train.
• I bought a BlackBerry Curve. Welcome to the 21st century, RazZDoodle.
• I've already bookmarked www.crackberry.com.

Wow, I really need some bloggy inspiration here. Please give me some before Xenia. I'm much more needy....er....deserving.