David Nightingale's Journal

Introductory Entry (Posted September 15, 2008)

I’ve been down at ZAP for about a month now. I spent my childhood and college life in the northeast, so it’s definitely a new experience coming to the south, the true heart of America. We found a copperhead snake at the end of the driveway during my second night here—let’s just say there aren’t too many of those in Connecticut or New Jersey. Even better, some of the guys threw it in the freezer and were dead set on cooking it up for dinner the next night. Unfortunately, we never got around to feasting on the snake or using it to mess with some of the teams that have come through here (despite my insisting that we throw it on one of the Duke girls’ beds). Florida State and NC State have also visited in the past few weeks for their preseason training. Otherwise, nothing too exciting has gone on around here recently. Most Boone residents were hoping that Appalachian State could shock another top-10 Division 1 opponent, but lightning certainly did not strike twice for the Mountaineers. For the record, I was somewhat close, having predicted that they would lose to LSU by a score of 52-24 (the actual score was 41-13). Speaking of football, I feel obligated to go on a minor rant about the Redskins’ dreadful season opener against the New York Football Giants (I was born in Washington DC, and upon moving to New England, I chose to stick with the ‘skins rather than sell out and become a Patriots fan). Not only was Jim Zorn’s clock management shockingly amateurish, but I’m not too happy about his west coast offense considering the team’s top two wide receivers are both only 5’9”.

Anyway, considering this is a running website, I should probably say a little bit about my own training. After being relatively injury-free during my first three years in college at Princeton, last year was pretty frustrating because I was hurt for a significant part of the cross country and indoor track seasons. Since my senior year brought some surprises but mostly disappointments, I’m excited to get back to some solid, consistent training here at ZAP. Other than a minor foot problem, which forced me to take about ten days off last month, I’ve been training pretty well here so far. At this point, I’m basically just gradually increasing my mileage and building up my aerobic base. Over the next month, I’ll mostly be doing a bunch of tempos, progression runs, fartleks, etc. I don’t focus too much on specific mileage, but I’ll most likely be in the mid-80s next week and in the 90s and low-100s throughout the fall and winter. My first race will probably be the Applefest 4-miler in Tennessee in early October. After that, I’m planning on running a local cross country race at App. State, the Ntelos 8K in Richmond, and the Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving Day.