I'm the running world's something or other

I ran my second "pace" run today and it went really well. I was nervous about it beforehand because this type of running is different from what I usually do: instead of really far at a snail's pace, it was kinda far, and kinda fast.

So I felt totally awesome when I made my time! Seven miles in one hour, two minutes, fifty-four seconds. I was happy to see that the Running Calculator provided by the Cleveland Clinic shares my enthusiasm. When I typed in my numbers to find out how many calories I burned on my run, the calculator had this comment:



Can you read that? It says "You're the running world's Lance Armstrong!"

Haha. Such an exaggeration but hey, I'll take what I can get. I guess they felt it was more inspirational than "You're the running world's average 30-year-old!", which would be more accurate. Or they could have gone with "You're the running world's you!", which has a comforting self-help ring to it, but which fails to really impress.

Just for fun, I started typing in a bunch of numbers. At 6 miles I get "Now that's what I'm talkin' about!" and for anything over 8 miles I get "Woah...The pavement's starting to melt!" Turns out I'm only Lance Armstrong between miles 7 and 8, which is a relief. Sure, it felt glamorous at first, but after a while the pressure of being a celebrity athlete wears you down.

Merry Merry

It's Holiday time again and I'm trying to get into the spirit, but this is probably the one time of year when everything in Japan seems the most foreign and different from what I expect. So I really feel this video by the Killers - there's something Christmas-like about it, but there's something that's a little off. And this time in a good way.