This is a much updated version of the year long Excel spreadsheet running log I had posted two years ago. You may want to refer to that post for some instructions. Thank you to all of you who had downloaded it, used it, suggested improvements and recommended it to others. If you liked that log, I think you’ll love this one!
This new log has some great features I think you’ll love like a spot for your training plan next to what you did. While the focus is on running, there is room for other exercises and things you might want to track, like sleep, injuries, supplements, heart rate averages and maximums, etc. There is a race predictor using Jack Daniels’ running formula, with a short, simplified, but effective and practical explanation on how to use it. There is a calculator to determine any of time, distance or pace you need to run if you know 2 of the 3 variables. There is also a routes table to help calculate routes you take that are not your normal ones, but piece together bits of various routes you have ran.
There is no new “summary” feature where what you input is number crunched, but that was because I didn’t perceive the need for any. Otherwise, most cells you shouldn’t touch are still locked up, but you have the ability to manipulate some partially for your use, like if you write a long comment one day and want to show it all rather than have some of it hidden away.
As you use this spreadsheet, change the view size if the info is too small for your comfort. It can be at least twice as large. Don’t strain your eyes over using this or feel like you have to put on glasses to use it. You’ll use it less frequently for every little annoyance like this.
The best way to see all this is to jump in so here goes! There are a lot of features to this log so don’t be intimidated by all the description. You need very little instruction to start and the rest should be pretty intuitive once you get going.
The file is MS Excel 2003 version for greater compatibility for people. If you use a version later than this, please do a Save As and choose the latest version so you won’t get the “compatibility” pop-up each time you close the file.
I owe this post to my friend Holly Bartlett, who told me about the 2003 Tony Award Musical of the Year called Avenue Q. The musical’s content that is talked about here, though, has serious potentially offensive content so this is your one and only warning. If you don’t have an edgy sense of humour, please don’t read on. There are plenty of other good things to read about on this blog.
I’ve liked Broadway and musicals for a long time now, but I was and still am quite “old skool” at it, loving the Rodgers & Hammerstein stuff. I have heard of, and love, some more modern stuff like Chicago, Wicked and Jekyll & Hyde. However, I need to pay closer attention to what Broadway is putting out each year if they’ve got stuff which doesn’t get a lot of attention as some of their other shows, but still is great, like Avenue Q.
Avenue Q is a modernSesame Street parody of similar characters trying to find a purpose in life when things aren’t going so well in adulthood after college. I can’t write a better plot summary than Wikipedia so I won’t try, but I like the description by one of its actors of “Sesame Street done South Park“. The show features a neat visual of real characters and puppets with their masters visible, something I’d like to try and learn one day for fun, and some seriously edgy humour and content.
Below is a medley of some songs in it, played for the Queen of England at the Royal Variety Performance, no less! That’s the one contestants on Britain’s Got Talent were vying to be a part of. So despite Avenue Q‘s potentially offensive content, the Royals proved they could handle it. Good on them!
The actual full musical has swearing in it, all kinds of soft and hard innuendos, even nude puppet sex! Other than songs like It Sucks to Be Me [lyrics] shown as part of a medley above, you also have songs (links are to lyrics) like
Schadenfreude (the word is German, meaning happiness from others’ misfortunes)
With a list of songs with titles like that, and others, better lyrics and even better music, who could resist seeing a show like this?
Ah, but it gets better with the Web and user-generated content. The Sesame Street parody has generated a whole bunch of parody Sesame Street videos of this musical, like the one below which I found just hilarious! The music is the actual music from the musical. Someone just adapted video for it from Sesame Street clips.
And then there’s If You Were Gay with Bert and Ernie, my favourite characters on Sesame Street who were parodied to be gay in 1997. Avenue Q ran with this to put it into its story with its equivalent characters to Ernie and Bert. So someone then had to have made the parody video with the original music and Sesame Street video clips of Bert and Ernie.
My Girlfriend, Who Lives in Canada [LazyTown, creepy he's singing about the flu with a pig at 0:30, as if insinuating swine flu, but this was posted in Nov 2007 long before swine flu was known in 2009!]
But in all fairness to Avenue Q, it addresses many tough issues of today like homosexuality, pornography and racism.
If you can’t stomach edgy humour and content, then this show would not be for you. You would not be normal in this, though, because this show is the 21st longest running show in Broadway history at the time of this writing (Jun 11 2009).
As for me, I have never visited New York City, but this might be enough impetus to get me there for a visit and viewing! Before I go, though, I’ve saved the best number, in my humble opinion, for last. Mix Tape isn’t outrageous or anything, aside from a few words, but it is funny. The best part of it is how well it was sung on the recording, shown in the “video” below. There’s actually no “video”, just an image, so read on and listen for all the little things mentioned to listen for.
Julie Atherton, played Kate Monster and sang Mix Tape. She also plays a very different character of Lucy the Slut in the same show (see London performance 2nd from top). But for Mix Tape, Julie had my emotions like a yo-yo on a string with all the nuances she puts into singing the lyrics that also goes up and down emotionally like a roller coaster. Julie acts the song through her singing, basically. All the little gasps, squeaks, sighs, inflections and such not written into the score, and especially how giddily she said he likes me! at the end. Credits to the songwriter/s as well for such a great tune, but I’ve heard so many bad renditions on YouTube, and in singing songs otherwise, that the performer gets huge kudos here. It might possibly the best example of how to perform a song I have ever heard! I mean that for all those nuances, not some booming grand voice sort of best sung description, but that’s the tougher accolades to be getting, in my books. If you were to ask me how I liked that recording, I’d say I love it! pretty much the way Julie squeaks he likes me! at the end of the song!
Post-scriptum:
It is almost a year later from when I first posted this, now May 31 2010, and how things have changed. Sadly, it’s not been for the good, but I want to make mention as a dedication. I did just get to see Avenue Q a week ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I watched it in memory of my friend Holly who had since passed away. I will always remember her for introducing me to this play, among many other reasons. Then, just a few days ago, Gary Coleman died on May 28. The show just wouldn’t be the same knowing he isn’t in the real world any more. I wonder how they’re handling the situation, but I’m glad I got to see Avenue Q without this circumstance surrounding it as it wouldn’t have felt the same for me.
This is a much updated version of the year long Excel spreadsheet running log I had posted two years ago. You may want to refer to that post for some instructions. Thank you to all of you who had downloaded it, used it, suggested improvements and recommended it to others. If you liked that log, I think you’ll love this one!
I owe this post to my friend Holly Bartlett, who told me about the 2003 
