Category: Unrealistic Goals

Run Faster By Opening Your Pie Hole

Run Faster By Opening Your Pie Hole

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apple pie
A slice a day keeps the doctor away.

Open Up

August weather has been incredible so far. I’ve done the math, and have determined it’s roughly 1,000,000% better than July. I’m still running the numbers but July might have set a record for face melting.

With the milder temperatures, I’ve returned to running (the kinetic kind, not the “away from my problems” kind). I’ve still got my eye on running faster and breaking 2 hours for my next half marathon.

Of course, I’m running it with my brother, who likes to train unconventionally. His method goes like this:

  • Don’t train at all
  • Show up on race day
  • Run 13.1 miles

I’ve seen him do this in 5 previous half marathons without fail. He’s even broken the 2-hour mark with this method. I don’t know how he does it.

Anyway, as it’s more important to me to have a fun race with my brother, we might run slower depending on how he feels. But I’m still interested in training with a goal just to keep things interesting.

Mile Repeats Repeats (haha)

Handy methods for speed improvements include intervals and mile repeats. Interval runs involve all-out sprinting for a short period of time, followed by a recovery period, then a sprint, etc. Mile repeats are like they sound: run a mile at a certain pace, recover, run another mile.

I decided nothing makes Thursdays quite as interesting as passing out, so I completed this ambitious repeat sequence today. It went as follows:

  1. Walk/warm-up
  2. Run 1 mile at 8:30 pace
  3. Walk one minute
  4. Run 1 mile at 8:00 pace
  5. Walk one minute
  6. Run 1 mile at 7:30 pace
  7. Walk one minute
  8. Run 1 mile at 7:00 pace
  9. Walk one minute
  10. Run 1 mile at 6:30 pace
  11. Walk/cool-down
  12. Throw up and die
  13. Get re-animated
  14. Towel off and drink some water

If You Run Faster You Will Be Faster

I’ve found that while I enjoy running, I really don’t enjoy running for speed. Probably because running faster is harder! I can’t just get in a groove and coast if I’m trying to run fast. There’s a time and place for everything though.

The best part about interval runs of any kind is that they don’t take as long to finish, which is awesome. Even when you add the time after the run where I die get re-animated by a shaman, intervals are still faster than steady state runs.

Here’s a logic bomb for you: if you want to finish a run of a particular distance in a faster time, you have to run faster. There is no other way. No shortcut. I’ve tried very hard to find another way and have been unsuccessful.

Why Try to Fly High? Aye, Because Pie

This is a good time to mention the secret to my running motivation. People run for different reasons: health, fun, endorphins, etc. But there is a motivator even stronger than any of these: guilt. The best motivation for a long or punishing run is a big ol’ helping of guilt.

eating a doughnut
This guy is motivated. Trust me.

My favorite way to feel guilty is to stuff something unhealthy into my pie hole. But don’t be fooled, you can use other foods besides pie to feel guilty after you’re done eating them. Pizza, ice cream, doughnuts, candy…the list of foods that will work is limited only by your imagination.

Yesterday I loaded up on some ice cream. Two scoops of cookie dough –> two scoops of guilt. Voila! Fool-proof recipe for getting on the road.

Full disclosure: this plan has nothing to do with calories. This strategy is guaranteed to make you fat over the long run. But I didn’t say this would make you thin! I just said it would give you motivation to run.

Anecdotal evidence also suggests this strategy will improve your running speed. As long as you are running downhill.

Johnny Limón and the Southern Cyclones

Johnny Limón and the Southern Cyclones

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A tried and true method to land easy laughs is to keep in mind the phrase “that’s a great band name.” That phrase, deployed any time an unusual or silly phrase comes up, usually delivers the goods.

With that in mind, I submit the band name Johnny Limón and the Southern Cyclones. No, I didn’t come up with the name because I want to start a Bossa Nova band. Or because I went to ancestry.com and discovered I’m Latin instead of Irish. (Someone as pale as me could never be Latin without some serious pigment mutations.)

I just started with cyclone and worked backwards. As for Limón?   Limón = Lemon, chosen because it rhymes with cyclone.

And why southern cyclone? Because southern cyclones spin clockwise, while northern ones spin counter-clockwise. Thus ends my interminably long article exposition, 100+ words of setting up why I’m writing this: my guitar pick spins clockwise in my hand when I play.

Apologies to the SEO gods. If SEO were a religion, an incredibly long and boring exposition like the one above would earn me a very harsh penance indeed. (Several hours of listening to Nickelback, for example.)

Anyway, why am I writing this again? Oh yeah, because that infuriating item known as a guitar pick keeps spinning in my hand when I try to play guitar. And it spins clockwise, which adds to my annoyance, as it forces me to add the adjective of “southern” to my article title.

Why is this happening? In my ongoing on-again/off-again, will-they/won’t-they relationship with guitar, I don’t remember having a problem with the pick rotating in my fingers while I’m playing a song. I’m not sure why it’s happening, but it’s very distracting and annoying.

And I don’t know about you, but I get very annoyed when I have to deal with things that are very annoying.

So what’s a man to do in this situation? Go to google, obviously. Turns out I’m not alone in combating the cyclone effect. There are many DIY (that’s Do It Yourself for the acronymically challenged) videos to address this issue, including one where a man augmented his pick with a drill press. I think I’ll avoid doing something that’s likely to end with me losing a body part.

Instead, I’ll do what white-collar workers do best and buy something to fix my problems. Enter Star Picks and Monster Grips. (“Wow, what a great band name!” See how easy it is to use that phrase?)

star pickmonster grip

Both of these items are cheap ways to combat cyclone fingers, and more importantly, involve no labor on my part. Like I said, I’m an accountant. Excel does all my labor.

The holes in the star picks are supposed to prevent spinning be allowing some finger flesh to fill the hole, which anchors the pick. The Monster Grips have some adhesive on them. They add some stickiness to the pick, which also should prevent it from spinning. Yay physics!

I look forward to seeing if these products can solve my problem. Let this article be entered into the record so that if I become a famous guitarist I can get an endorsement deal.

If these don’t work, I’m sure I can employ the American Way and buy something else to solve my problems. But if nothing else works I can just become one of these guitarists who give it the finger.

Jonathan Lemon Is Ax’ing You a Question

Jonathan Lemon Is Ax’ing You a Question

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New Yawkers are known to ax questions. I’ve got an ax question of my own: at what point does someone become a master ax man?

It might provide some helpful context to describe that the ax in question is the guitar, not an actual ax.

Ax to Grind

This is the maiden article of another unrealistic goal of mine: to be a master ax man.

This goal has been on-again, off-again since I was about 14. I know the main chords that are used for the rhythm of 90% of all popular songs. So I could play at campfires, barbecues, etc…if I got an invite to one, brought a guitar, was asked to play, and knew any songs.

That’s my main problem. When I practice, I usually noodle around. I’ve historically lacked disciplined to learn and actually memorize songs.

Proof that I Own Guitar Stuff

On the awesome side, there’s never been a better age for amateur guitar enthusiasts. Gear quality, options, access, and prices have never been better. For a couple hundred bucks someone can put together a sophisticated-looking rig, start tossing around $10 words like “rig” and “boosted mids,” and look like someone who might know what he’s doing.

Also, music stuff has an active secondary market (read: used instruments) where you can get great deals if you know what you’re looking for. I have no data on this, but I’d be willing to bet “learning to play guitar” is second on the list of most-broken New Year’s Resolutions behind losing weight/going to the gym more. Whatever the reason, resolution breakage has worked out great for me.

Here’s my current set-up for proof that I’m entitled to use $10 words like a poser:

jonathan lemon guitar
PRS SE Custom 22 Semi-Hollow Body Guitar. There is a discrepancy between how good the guitar looks and how good I play.
jonathan lemon guitar amp
Marshall MG15CD 15 Watt Combo Amp. You don’t need a huge amp with my monster guitar tone! (Told you I’m a poser.)
jonathan lemon guitar effects
Digitech RP-355 MultiFX processor. They don’t make these anymore…so that qualifies this as vintage!

Hit List

I’ve taken a new approach in this guitar go-round. Rather than messing around with random chord progressions or trying to turn scales into music, I’m just going to learn songs. “Learning to play songs” is what I really meant when I told myself in the past that I wanted to “learn to play guitar.”

It’s time I focused on this distinction.

I’m starting to think that playing songs is just a better approach to learning anyway. It’s more fun and is a practical way to approach musical elements such as keys and rhythm. And let’s face it: when you tell people you play guitar, everyone’s first follow up question is “What songs do you know?” For a long time my answer was “None…but do you want to hear these random chords I put together?”

As such, I’ve put together my first list of hit songs to learn. Here are my first 5 targets:

  1. Cherry Cherry — Neil Diamond
  2. Eleanor Rigby – The Beatles
  3. Next to You — The Police
  4. JAR — Green Day
  5. Just What I Needed – The Cars

These songs are all very straightforward and I can play them all right away (sans solos)…as soon as I memorize them  🙂

Squirrel!

Another problem I’ve encountered historically when trying to learn songs is getting distracted by new songs. I’ll hear a song I like on the radio, or remember a riff I like, etc. At that point I’ll abandon a half-learned song for the new song, and around and around it goes. That’s a pattern for a lot of unlearned songs.

So I resolve to not touch any other songs until the first batch is done. My resolutions are usually like everyone else’s: they don’t have the best track record. But it’s different this time, I swear!

Finally, after I’m done with the 5 songs above I’m going to move on to… haha, nice try brain! Read the above sentence again.

Anticipatory Pain: Worse than Reality?

Anticipatory Pain: Worse than Reality?

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Jonathan Lemon’s Unrealistic Quest to Run Faster has me noticing I have a strong aversion to running intervals. Intervals are short bursts of near-max effort, followed by bursts of average effort. Sometimes I’ll totally bail out and do some other exercise instead. Yet when I do the intervals, the pain is never as bad as I imagined.

My experience left me wondering whether imagined pain is worse than actual pain. Do my thoughts increase the pain I experience?

Turns out the answer is yes. Anticipatory pain can be worse than physical pain.

Anticipation produces dread. Dread adds a layer of pain over physical pain. You can read about a research study here.

A quote by Dr. Giles Story, the study’s lead researcher, describes my interval problem: “We believe people often procrastinate in the hope that maybe painful events will just go away altogether. But if an event is inevitable, the pattern of wanting to get it over with seems to hold.”

Procrastinating works because I’m in control of whether I run or not. It gives my brain time to convince me NOT to run intervals and do something else.

Anticipatory pain manifests itself in other areas as well. Another study shows the dread-pain relationship in students anticipating math tests.

The research clearly shows it’s not my fault for not running intervals. It’s my brain’s fault and there is nothing I can do about this. Well, I wish anyways.

Positive self-talk, relaxation, and meditation decrease anticipatory pain. Mandating a task and eliminating discretion works as well, as described in the quote.

Runners know that running can be as much a mental challenge as physical. The mind has many tricks up its sleeve, and it doesn’t even have sleeves. That’s how tricky it is.

I’ll need to devise some strategies to get me over the interval hump. If all else fails, I have one idea.

Jonathan Lemon’s Unrealistic Running Quest, 5/17/17

Jonathan Lemon’s Unrealistic Running Quest, 5/17/17

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I was fooling around with my Run Keeper app over the weekend and learned that you can enter goals into it, such as weight loss, distance running, or time goals. (I prefer the term Running Quest to Running Goal, but that’s neither here nor there.)

So of course I had to enter a running quest… no one likes the planning stage of something more than I do! Well, almost no one.

I entered a goal to break 2 hours for a half marathon, which is 13.1 miles. I’ve managed to break that wall before, but’s it’s been a couple of races. (I could blame my times on my brother, my running partner who doesn’t train for races. But it’s hard to run and throw someone under the bus at the same time.)

Running more races than one Half Marathon a year would probably help my pace as well, but I’m usually very busy on Sundays, what with sleeping in and everything.

Anyway, a 2-hour finishing time is a pace of about 9 minutes per mile, which is very doable with some focused training. And that’s the no fun part for me: turning plans into action. As an analytical person, I live in my head all most of the time. But actions don’t occur in the brain, no matter how much I try.

So I laced up shoes and went on training run #1 today, a standard 5-miler at an easy pace. Good thing, because I wasn’t feeling it today. But I finished it! And that’s enough to get me on a winning streak.

One last thought before I go eat an entire pizza and gallon of ice cream (I earned it, right?). If you’re a runner, you’ve probably had those days where running was effortless. Like you could go forever. And you know how maddening it can be when you do all the same things you did to get those perfect days but feel like garbage during a run.

There’s a reason why you might feel that way: you’re going through the same symptoms as drug withdrawal.

I’m not sure that thought helps in any way but the truth hurts sometimes. Like some runs.