Odd behavior in traffic

Today's Frazz will probably prompt a few cameo questions, so here we go: Jenn Steinhilber is a good friend who may or may not be much of a tailgater. I honestly don't know. But I do know she commutes to Detroit on a stretch of road where, in my experience, pretty much everybody else tailgates, so she got the nod. I don't think she's won the Nobel Prize, either, although she may someday. It's getting hard to tell. Frazz's shirt says "Mr. B's" on it. That's probably a convergence of circumstances. Sure, Jenn lives not far from a restaurant with that name. I also own a cat named Mr. B, and there's good odds that he was finding a way to involve himself with the process at the time.

Actually, Mr. B (the cat) is short for Baryames, named after a chain of formal-wear shops here in Lansing. He's a formerly stray black-and-white tuxedo who was supposed to be a rental.

Back to the tailgating theme, at Saturday's Snowflake 10K, I followed other runners to a 43:31, good for a 7:01-per-mile pace that I'm sure fit into one of the ranges suggested by my training program. At any rate, it was good for 3rd in my age group and 14th overall; a nice, if vague and apparently water-soluble, plaque; a very fun morning; and I think the first time I've placed that high in a running-only race unless you count last October when my dog dragged me to a 3rd in the Michigan State University Canine Cruise 5K. Bravo to the Riverbend Striders for a well-run and fun race.

I took the advice John posted in Friday's comments, to "chuck the technology and just run like hell". I like advice that essentially endorses what I do anyway, which in this case is to train with the wires and run from the gut. But I still wear the wires during the race so I can analyze everything to death afterward. Saturday's results tell me my speed was consistent enough from mile to mile, and the fact that I probably don't belong out there racing remained consistent from race to race:

This gets technical and nerdy, but there's this thing called a lactate threshold, and it has nothing to do with one's tolerance for mothers breast-feeding in public. It is, essentially, your body's engine's red line, the point of rapidly and painfully diminishing returns. You can have it tested in a lab, or you can test it in more informal ways like going flat-out for 20 minutes and seeing what your average heart rate was. Last time I took the lab test, my lactate threshold came in at 154. Last time I did the 20-minute test, it was more like 165. Saturday I averaged 167 for twice that; my final 20 minutes of the race had my heart going at 172. That all looks like progress, but what it really means is I'm working awfully hard to go some very average 7-minute miles.

I don't know if that means I'm overachieving or underachieving or if even at that pace I'm running way beyond my birthright and need to grow myself a Steve Prefontaine mustache (it's a bit late for the Steve Prefontaine haircut). Probably what it means is that when John tells me to chuck the electronics and just run, he's got a better point than I want to admit.