14 miles and 15 songs

Regular readers of Cantabloggia have noted an absence of running news lately, so here is a quick attempt to rectify that omission. This week I have logged 14 miles in 4 days of running, making it my highest mileage week since the meniscectomy. And when I hit 4 miles in a single run on Monday, that was the longest I'd run since January, and probably the longest pain-free run since 2005. So things are progressing fairly well, certainly much better than during my first post-surgical comeback attempt in April.

In other running news, I went along and cheered my GBTC team-mates at the Rhody 5k last week. The photo at the top of the post shows what a truly stunning venue it is (see the full set of photos here). In prior years the race has consisted of 4700m of running on baking tarmac topped off by a 300m finishing sprint on the sandy dog track, but this year construction of the parking lot kept runners away from the track and safely on asphalt the whole way. For the first time in several years the weather was actually conducive to racing, with the top 2 men breaking 15 minutes.

On the musical front, next weekend I'm off to the wedding of two self-proclaimed geeks in love. The DJ at this event is none other than my friend and blogging role model Matt aka DJ Durutti. Rob and Cameron, the happy couple, have asked all guests to send in 5 songs, from which Matt is to assemble the wedding dance mix. (Shades of High Fidelity, with our hero's habit of making top 5 lists of every aspect of his life.) Apparently everyone will get at least one song, although Matt tells me that the most lame suggestions may get included only as part of a medley (oops, I hope not too many wedding guests read this and discover that their taste is lame). Elsewhere in the blogosphere, this task of picking 5 songs has caused way too much stress and introspection. Not in my household. Christy and I figure we were entitled to one top 5 list each, so we banged out the first one pretty fast:

This Charming Man - The Smiths
Boys Don't Cry - The Cure
Do You Love Me Now? - The Breeders
Galvanize - The Chemical Brothers
The Boy with the Arab Strap - Belle & Sebastian

When I pointed out that we had managed to hit 4 decades (defying the expectation that all our songs would be from the 80s) Matt agreed that we could get at least one bonus track. We submitted 5 more

The Groove is On - Groove Armada
Lust for Life - Iggy Pop
Hey Boy, Hey Girl - The Chemical Brothers
Baggy Trousers - Madness
Safety Dance - Men Without Hats

in part to do our bit for the 80s, and to address the comment that not everything in the prior list was strictly danceable.

Shortly thereafter we received this message from a geek in love:

>We should have made it clear, but we want your _entire family's_ favorite
>dance tunes. Kids of all ages (and there will be a bunch of 'em!) are encouraged
>to supplement the list.

I was somewhat nervous about being not only surrounded my "kids of all ages" at the wedding but also forced to listen to their music. Well, Matt, we're counting on your good taste. Anyway, this request quickly prompted my cat Paula to submit her favorite 5 dance songs:

The Cure: Love Cats
Squeeze: Cool for Cats
Hefner: Hello Kitten
Strat Cats: Stray Cat Strut
Elvis Presley: Hound Dog

(Paula omits "All Cats are Gray" (The Cure) because it's not much of a dance tune)

Considering that she wasn't born until the late 90s, I think that's a pretty sophisticated list. Although Hello Kitten isn't really much of a dance song either.

Here's one track from my B list, off the excellent Lovebox Album by Groove Armada:




Groove Armada - The Groove is On