They Call it the Real Folk Blues

I've been watching Cowboy Bebop episodes with Allie via AllUC in an attempt to get her excited about one of my favorite television shows of all time. Anime is not usually my style, but some shows transcend the mostly sour genre we know as 'popular anime:' shows like Naruto, Bleach, Dragon Ball Z, Blue Dragon, Beyblade, and many others. There are a few gems in the anime world - very few in my opinion - which can hold my attention and keep it well.
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Most of these animes are ones which have plots I could see evolving into a modern or postmodern kind of way: the antihero, the villain who is by no means evil, just has an agenda, the intriguing plot twist. Stuff like Bebop makes me feel more faith in humanity's ability to come up with skillfully written plots and use new characters. I particularly like Bebop because of the mystery ingrained so deeply into every episode with regards to the characters' pasts: viewers are thrust into the action knowing very little about these so-called 'protagonists,' but know right away that these are the guys we're supposed to root for, flaws and poor judgments aside.

I went on another long-ish run tonight, an experience which was quite phenomenal. I ran without my watch for the first time in about a month, mostly because I cannot remember the last place it landed, but also somewhat because I decided to run today based solely on feel. I kept a pretty steady pace throughout: I would call it my marathon pace, were I a betting man. I sure felt like I could go another twenty miles after finishing six, but of course this would be subject to some re-evaluation once I reached, say, mile eighteen.

Running by feel, sans-watch, is pretty liberating when your life is dominated by the terms 'tempo,' '5k/10k/half/marathon pace,' 'easy,' 'interval,' and 'comfortably hard.' For some reason, I always put a timer on myself when it comes to these runs. I never really enjoy the beauty of a long, slow run; I always go about the same pace throughout. It's a weird situation: I run tempo runs at a 8:00/mile pace; I run all my other runs at this pace. My body just feels this is the pace to go. I need to vary these times, making my tempo runs significantly quick and my long runs significantly slower. My marathon pace is right around 8:20. Having a relaxing, long run at 9:00/mile pace is not going to destroy that, especially if my tempo runs become 7:20/mile pace.

-RKS