Weekend Race and Exhibition Ready

On Saturday I am running the NYRR Al Gordon 4 miler. Last year I won some hardware with 3rd place. This year, well I will see where I am at. Hopefully it will be a bit brighter than last weekend.

The rest of the weekend I am doing my final work for my exhibition opening which is Friday March 4 from 6-7:30 at Muriel Guepin Gallery, in Brooklyn. Please come out!The show will be up for one month and the gallery will be hosting a big dinner party on March 25th. Stay tuned for information.

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Cherry Tree

Today was Prospect Park Track Clubs Cherry Tree, 10 miler or 10 mile relay. I ran the relay with Rachel Hitchcock and Jen Ishii, both my Front Runner teammates and awesome runners.

I was enthusiastic after running my 22:30, 5k without training on News Years Day so I expected to take some significant time off. But I didn’t, and it hurt.

To frame this I am doing crossfit 3x a week.  I am on week 4 of our gym’s Paleo Challenge, of eating only meat/fish, vegetables and minimal fruit. No grain, sugar, dairy what so ever. The first week was a nightmare, I could hardly cross the street, the second week felt good and I ran a decent 4 mile benchmark test, the third week I had trouble recovering and focusing and now the fourth week I feel very heavy. The thing is I am only eating about 1200-1400 calories  and some days only 1000, I have not lost any weight so that should mean it is sufficient, but I  have no energy except when it comes to weightlifting and short sprints.  hummmm?

I have not been doing long runs, and only haphazard 3-4 milers, sometimes more. But I have been doing 20 second hill sprints, 400’s, (in between overhead squats), and some short stuff. Lot of metabolic conditioning in crossfit. I planned on running between 7:15 and 7:30 average. My 4 mile race average last week was 7:30. (My PR is 7:02) The killer hill would be slow but I could make up for it on the way back.   Anyhow, my first mile and last 1/2 mile were both 6:52, the middle was beyond ugly, one mile passing the 8:00 mark. It is too embarrassing to admit (but I will)  but the average pace was slower than my 4 mile pace, 7:40. My body felt like lead.

I could say it was cold, it was 21º, I took off too fast, which I did, and the lactate was not clearing and I was shut down. Now at home I just want to sleep.

Next Saturday is another 4 mile. Should I run easy, aerobic,  all week, add oatmeal to my diet?  I will see the Paleo Challenge out to Sunday but add sweet potatoes every day.  I am eager to see my before and after photos. Did I add muscle? Did I lose fat? I feel like an albatross.

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CrossFit Paleo Mania

I just got home from working out at Crossfit Virtuosity in Brooklyn. What is Crossfit? You can take a look at their site and many videos for Crossfit Games on YouTube. Think of it as old school running, jumping, gymnastics,  weight lifting, rope climbing, chin ups, etc.  The weight could be a kettle ball, bar, sand bag or tire. This is what today’s workout looked like:

We lined up and run across the giant Williamsburg warehouse gym with high knees, butt kicks, suicides, then crawling stretches. This is followed by a skill lesson, today was deadlift. We do all the Olympic lifts, snatch, clean and jerk, along with the squat, deadlift, and press. I suck at the power lifts, power is not my best attribute.  On Sunday I did my first real deadlift workout to find my one rep max. At 118 pounds, me, I deadlifted 205 pounds, the weighted bar.  I felt pretty freakin awesome.

Back to today. We lined up on the platform with a 95 pound bar, deadlift 5 reps, then the next person goes. After all 5 people lift (that is how many were on my platform) we add 20 pounds. We made it up to 5 reps of 155 pounds before running out of time. Our strength work is done. Then comes the met-con or metabolic conditioning. This stuff kicks your ass.  I probably could have cried when I finished, this is so much harder than running fast intervals on the indoor track. We set the weight to .8 of where we finished our set of 5, which is 125 pounds. One person at a time, as fast as possible does 5 reps of the 125# deadlift then 10 burpees. This whole thing is repeated 5 times as fast as possible. I am decent with the metcons due to my endurance abilities but I am not very strong, yet. I was a  slow, it took me 6 minutes and 47 seconds to do 5 rounds.  My partner did hers in 6:30 but she also lifted 108 pounds instead of 125. The men were faster yet.

To see what it looks like you can click on the link of this highschool (?) student.

This month we are doing the Paleo Challenge. Thirty days of no grain, legumes, dairy, sugar, alcohol. We eat just vegetables, fruit, seeds, fish and meet. Yes there are before pictures, maybe you will see a before and after. But only if my running times get faster as I get stronger. That is the ultimate goal.

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PrintSocial

Saturday was the first PrintSocial and Theo Castro a friend from Canada came over to my apartment at 2pm.
I sat Theo at my table and explained all the ways he could create an image on a block. He decided to draw freeland with a marker. As Theo drew I set up the inking station and printing papers. By the time I was done with that Theo was ready to carve. After showing him how to carve I sat down at my table to carve my block. I have a giant 36″ x 24″ block I am working on for my exhibition which opens March 4, at Muriel Guepin Gallery in Brooklyn.
As we both carved we talked and talked. I have known Theo for 5 years and I have watched him go from party boy art student (though he was also a theology student at the same time) to ordained deacon to ordained priest. It was always funny at work when I would say I am going to Canada to my friends ordination, he is a priest. Most people could not quite figure out how I would have a friend who is a priest. Well today they got to meet him as he came to my class at Long Island University, no one expected a 33 year old “kid.” But back to PrintSocial.
It was amazing to talk about both of our journeys over the past 5 years. A lot really has changed. Theo finished carving the block and I showed him how to ink it then run it through the press.
The first impression as it is called was uneven, so as he inked his plate I adjusted the press. The second one was perfect. He ran off a edition of 10, plus two artist proofs. An edition is a set of prints that are identical. The “proofs” are the trial prints made before the edition. But they too match.
Just as I had planned it took 3 hours, but Theo stayed and we talked for over 6 hours. He is leaving in two weeks for Sri Lanka where he is doing refugee work. I will not see him for three years. I will really miss him.
One addition I plan to make from time to time with PrintSocial is cookies. A fantasy I always have had is to bake cookies each morning, then go to work on the press. It is my wish that people will drop by to chat, have a cookie, look at art, maybe make a print. This is the fantasy that I am creating in New Mexico, and I also throwing a chicken coop into the fantasy.  But in NYC I prefer people to call before coming over, and if I have a few days notice, I will make cookies. But please do not be shy about wanting to come check this PrintSocial thing out. It is for everyone, no matter what your background. It is just a sit and carve and chat in my kitchen, with Labradors lazing about.

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