Tag Archives: Pennsylvania

People Who Run Downtown

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Some of the people I run with every Wednesday (6PM, Schenley Oval) also run on Tuesday nights with a group called People Who Run Downtown. A couple days ago, they got a plug in the Trib PM.

Strength in numbers

“Planning to eat at Finnigan’s Wake on a recent Tuesday night, Albert DiPietro took a six-mile detour from the North Side restaurant’s front door to his table. He’s among some 50 people who gather at a Pittsburgh area restaurant each week to first run and then sit down for dinner. The group, People Who Run Downtown, never goes to any place more than once a year. The group visits 52 restaurants a year and has been to more than 230 restaurants over the years.”

Romito Brothers Band at Town Tavern Tonight

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A buddy of mine’s band is competing in a battle of the bands. Tonight they’ll be playing at Town Tavern. Here’s more info:

The Romito Brothers Band formed in the fall of 2004 while Dante and Michael were both students at the University of Pittsburgh. The brothers jammed in a band together, along with bassist Tom Smith . The three spent the next two years writing songs and learning covers, but were still in need of a drummer. Recently Rich Bono joined the band on drums, completing the band’s lineup. Influences of the Romito Brothers include Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, Barenaked Ladies, and many more. The brothers are currently working on CD, and hope to release it in the summer of 2007.

The Town Tavern and 105.9 The X are hosting our first annual Battle of the Cover Bands! The X is looking for any bands that are interested in playing the music that inspired them to form a band. They also want to hear some of the bands original music! This is the first time the Town Tavern is doing anything with live music.

The contest is arranged as follows: each band in the preliminary rounds will play a 25 minute set. Fifteen of those minutes are required to be covers of popular songs. The ten minutes remaining are left to the discretion of the bands. One winner from each night will go on to compete in the finals

They are judging this competition through three factors. Crowd noise is going to play a huge part in winning each night. They want to hear the band’s fans cheering and try to get the other band’s fans into it as well. They want to hear everyone in the building singing along to all the songs. They will be counting which fan is showing up for what band. Lastly, the X’s dj the Whipping Boy will be serving as a judge.

2007 Race for the Cure 5K

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Yesterday, I ran the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5K. I finished in 25:34 (8:15 pace). I placed 531/2236 overall and 61/134 in my class. That’s not my best 5K time to date, but it’s a lot better than my time at last year’s Race for the Cure. I finished that in 27:30 and by the end of the season I was about 2:15 faster, so I’m hoping I can shave another 2+ minutes off at this year’s Run Shadyside.

BTW, this was my last race in the 20-29 and 25-29 brackets. After May 29, I’ll be in the 30-39 and 30-34 classes. 🙂

2007 Run With HAART 5K

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On April 21, I ran the Run With Haart 5K in Schenley Park. I’d have posted an entry about it sooner, but the results only recently appeared on the web. Anyhow, I finished in 26:18 (8:29 pace); I placed 69/155 overall and 28/42 in my age/sex class. It certainly wasn’t my best 5K performance to date, but considering I didn’t train for it and drank 4 beers and a glass of wine the night before, I can’t complain. 😉

2007 Just a Short Run Half Marathon

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On March 31, I ran the 7th annual Just a Short Run in North Park. My goals weren’t lofty since I’m more interested in my performance at this year’s Ikea half marathon. I wanted to run at faster than a 10:00 pace and finish without walking at all. I’m pleased to say that I achieved both goals. 🙂 I finished in 2:07:53 (9:45 pace), 429/636 overall and 41/46 males 25-29.

Not all went well, though. At about mile 11, which is where I started walking for a while at the Ikea, I hit a wall. It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other. I dropped from the 9:30-ish pace I’d been running to close to 11:00. I felt there was a possibly I’d pass out – a rather unpleasant feeling. I didn’t start walking, though. In fact, I still managed to tap into reserves to sprint the last 100 meters or so. I was really beat at the end, but within a few minutes felt pretty good, perhaps due to endorphins kicking in. By about an hour after the race, though my feet were killing me. They really hurt like hell, forcing me to walk like a feeble old man. Walking was quite painful for a few days, but thankfully the pain went away. I suspect I had developed peroneal tendonitis as a result of switching insoles.

My goal for this year’s Ikea is to finish with an average pace of 9:30 and not bonk. I paced myself this time using my heart monitor. I maintained an average heart rate of 90% (85% by the Karvonen formula), and until mile 11 that seemed to work out quite well. I’m hoping that with good training my heart rate will drop and my overall fitness will improve sufficiently to make that heart rate correspond to a faster pace.

P.S. I used my iPod. What are you going to do about it? 😛