Saturday, October 27, 2012

Training for a 5k

Every year,  the city has a charity run to raise money for the The Talbert Family Foundation, which provides financial help to families who suffer from cancer.  A nice boy in my grade at school, has Leukemia,  and this year I am running to raise money for his family. The run is 5 kilometers long on the streets. Most of the course is set on hilly streets, and so I have to get into better shape to prepare for the race.  The race will be on the morning of Nov 11.

To prepare for the race, I have been running 3 days a week.  I have been trying to find places with many hills so I will be prepared. This weekend, my mom took Hannah, Michael, my dog Romeo, and I to a the mountains above our home for a run. I am not sure exactly how long the trail was, but I think it was around 5k. The trail was perfect to train on because there were many steep mountains. I ran until the trail ended with Romeo panting and running beside me and then turned around and ran back.  It was a very enjoyable run because I was able to see beautiful views of our whole city below.  Even though it is October, we had a  gorgeous clear sunny day with not even a single could.  Hannah and Michael, brought along their bikes and biked with my mom running slowly behind them. My siblings complained most of the way back because it was too difficult for them to pedal. They ended up having to carry their bikes most of the way.   For me, it was a great way to spend the morning exercising.


















Have you ever trained for some type of activity?

What do you like to do for exercise?

Monday, October 15, 2012

New Piano Pieces

My sisters and I learned a couple of pieces over the summer and so my mother recorded us.  I played Prelude Op 38. by Dmitri Kabalevsky and Sonata No. 9  Hob. XVI/4 by Joseph Haydn.

Dmitri Kabalevsky, a Russian composer was born in St. Petersburg in 1904. In 1918, Kabalevsky moved with his family to Moscow, where he studied at the Scriabin Music School. At the age of 18, Kabalevsky began to compose for piano. His early pieces were practicies for his young students. He entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1925 to study piano.  His career as a composer ended in 1987 when he passed away.  Prelude is jumpy, fast, and loud.   Kabalevsky's preludes are a set of 24 piano pieces, and each piece is based on a folksong and is written in a different key. It was composed between 1943- 1944 and dedicated to Nikolai Myaskovsky, his teacher.

Joseph Haydn is an Austrian composer who composed in the Classical Period in the mid 1700s.  Haydn composed many wonderful Sonatas and Sonatinas. In a previous post, I played a piece by Haydn.  To get more information about Haydn and to listen to me playing more music by this composer visit this link. The piece that I am playing below is a happy, light, fast piece.  It is so fast that if my fingers get tired or get stuck on a note, then I mess up the whole entire song.  Hope you enjoy it!









 Which piece did you like better?