Madge, the Palmolive detergent lady, was American! (via this review, reprinted in the Guardian Weekly). When I was a kid Madge was on New Zealand TV (TV2, because the other channel—just two channels until I was 15—did not have commercials). But Madge had an Australian accent: "You're soaking een eet," was how her signature line came across.
I also learned why some people don't like running in the rain. I've learned this before, but the rain here is so seasonal that I forget. Used to run in the rain a lot owing to the "maritime climate" I grew up in. That's a euphemism for "It can rain a lot, anytime of the year." Now my precipitation comes in a different form—that would be snow—and how nice it is to run when snow is falling. Rain, not so much. Now I just tolerate it.
Bloglines "Mark All Read" feature could be labeled "Get Work Done!" Today I have just read my "Local" (that's all you folks in the Twin Cities) and Running feeds.
I did take time to read this article in the Washington Post about high school cross-country training, in which they re-discover that some high schoolers are running 80-100 mile weeks in summer. It's a pretty balanced article on a topic that can generate a lot of emotion. There'll never be a resolution of this question because high schoolers can be at such varying levels of physical development, even at the same age. Personally, I had a great year running in [the equivalent of] my senior year after putting in a summer in which I ambled around for up to 80 miles a week. On trails. That was pretty key -- the trails kept it fun and the impact on the body is so much lower. Speedwork (IIRC) consisted of fartlek, some tempo runs (a new thing then), and 10 x 1 minute with and 10 x 30 second (even recovery) closer to races. In between the cross country (June-August) and track (October-December) seasons I recall going back to the trails and not doing much, if any, speedwork at all. Out of all that I got myself a low 17 5km (road), and more importantly a 20:48 6km (road race) in the national secondary schools race I was peaking for. I'd be happy to be running those times again.
Back to the 19th century ...
Posted by robe0419 at September 28, 2005 4:57 PM