Figured it was time to update you on whats going on, what will be happening, and what-nots.
First off, as I alluded to before, we just adopted beautiful twins. Please welcome Eliana and her little brother Isaac to the world. They were born May 10, and we were there for all that excitement. (Well, My wife was. I was in the recovery room, with the camera and the important job of hitting the button on the baby warmer machine. I took it very serious, and the nurses were suitable impressed. Yes, I can press the little red button when the alarm sounds with the best of them.)
Ah, life is good…
Sincethen has been hectic. Sure, with two babies, you’d expect it to by. But this was further complicated by the fact that they found a heart murmur in Eliana. Investigation found some very serious congenital heart defects and other assorted issues.
She had open heart surgery when she was 5 days old. This has stabilized her, and in a few months when she’s bigger, she’ll go back for the more intensive reconstruction surgery.
After a few weeks of shuffling back and forth between the hospital and hotel we were staying (the adoption was out of town), Isaac and I came home last weekend. This weekend, Eliana and my wife will fly home. (She’s being discharged from the hospital at the end of the week.)
The hard part now will be keeping her away from people for a few months while she heals. After heart surgery, you need to be careful to stay away from any potential illness, since your body is weak and needs to recover. So, if you see me showing up places with only Isaac for a while, that’s why. (It’s also why we’ll be really anal about making everyone wash their hands before playing.)
Isaac is in good shape and can’t wait to get out there in the jogging stroller. (I’ll assume she can’t wait either, but since she hasn’t actually seen the stroller yet, it’s hard to say.)
And hey, the girl next door that wants to help babysit just ran her first 5K. I think that means she’s ready to take care of the baby and be corrupted by the running folks out there. Maybe a 1/2 marathon to celebrate her 13th birthday…
“This course is relatively flat,” pause for effect, “for Eastern Tennessee.”That’s how Randy Whorton described the course during his opening comments Saturday morning.Never running in any part of Tennessee, I just laughed with the rest of the crowd.The race, from the website, described the course as “fast and forgiving.”Now I know race directors are pretty full of it and are generally just trying to pump up attendance, but what the heck is that supposed to mean?At least it was creative.
The race was run on a single track mountain bike course on Raccoon Mountain in Chattanooga.Words like, Vasque Project, The Boonies, SORBA and TVA were thrown around more than a few times when describing the course.Like any good trail run, you cut under or by several power lines and had more than a few hills, switchbacks, exposed roots and big ol’ rocks.The one thing lacking was no mud or water crossings.Race started at 8 am and it was about 70 degrees outside with about 340% humidity.Threat of rain existed for the entire race, but unfortunately, we never got any rain.The full and half marathoners started together.I overheard someone saying we had almost 400 total runners and almost 100 marathoners.
We started out in the parking lot and ran as crowd for about the first ½ mile.We ducked into the woods for the first of 2 laps (half marathoners did 1 lap).First loop was a breeze.Every hill seemed manageable and it was plenty easy to get around people to pass.The race crew did a great job setting up photographers along the course and I found myself showing off while leaping from some rocks.We had 3 well stocked aid stations (water, hammer gels, pretzels, Heed and candy) on the course and they were spaced out at 3, 8 and about 11 miles.Course was marked very well except in one spot were a few of us took a wrong turn.I, along with a few others, ran a few hundred feet in one direction before we realized that this might not be the correct way.We doubled back and started to follow the course in the opposite direction.After about a mile, we saw some course markings and were relieved that we made the right choice.Note, on the second loop, that same spot had now been properly marked.The race crew did a great job of getting out there and fixing the problem.
I was clicking off the miles and doing fairly well, passing people on regular basis and was just under a 4 hour pace after the first loop.Then I got overconfident.I broke one of my “rules of marathoning.”I had read somewhere that you shouldn’t pour cold water or use a cold compress on yourself on long runs.The reasoning was that the cold water causes your pours to close and you can’t properly sweat and wind up overheating.I don’t know if this is true or not, but trying it during a warm and humid marathon, probably wasn’t the brightest idea I’ve ever had.
At the first aid station on lap 2 (about mile 15), I took an ice cold compress and wiped off my face, neck, chest and back.I’ll admit, it felt great, but after about 3 miles, I felt like my body was on fire.I became nauseous, started to cramp and became exhausted.During miles 18-24, my pace changed from a 4-hour finish, to a sub 5-hour finish.
Aid station workers kept telling me I looked good and that there was a ton of other runners still on the course.I knew they meant well, but I didn’t believe their lies.I kept trudging along, running the flats and the downhills while slowly walking the uphills.Somewhere around mile 20 I lost all of my appetite and felt water logged.My intake of fluids almost completely stopped.I was able to eat a few pretzels, but otherwise my food and fluid consumption grinded to a halt.Looking back, with the combination of the humidity and lack of fluids, I’m surprised that I crossed the finish line at 4 hours and 45 minutes.
Overall the course was fantastic, not too difficult and very scenic.Race was organized well and support and aid stations were fantastic.All the runners were extremely cordial and very friendly.Photographers took excellent shots and post race spread was top notch.This race can be chalked up to definitely worth doing again or suggesting to others.
This week, I’ve done a bit of running on treadmills…
Not your ordinary treadmill, but some super high-tech LifeCyle ones. And get this. They have a HDTV built into them. Hmmm, there is just something about running and watching the Food Network at the same time.
Yeah, that’s pretty fancy.
Anyhow, I had to whip up a quick dinner this week, and for lack of content of worth, thought I’d share it with you. It’s an easy 1 pot recipe. Would probably work well while out camping.
1 lb ground turkey
2 cans black beans (drained and rinsed)
2 cans tomatoes, diced
1 large can spaghetti sauce
Large sweet onion
2 spoonfuls of cinnamon, salt, black pepper, chili powder, oregano
2 cups rotini pasta
Garlic
Dice Onion and through in pot to sauté. Add turkey and brown.Add garlic during browning.
Add tomatoes and beans and spices. Bring up to simmer and let cook for 15-20 minutes.
Add spaghetti sauce. Let heat up for a few minutes (10 minutes or so). Add pasta.
This weekend, I had every intention of going up to Harbins Park to see the new trails. This is a new park in the Gwinnett park system, and it looks like it has at least 20 miles of various trails to explore. (They are multi-use, with some for biking, horseback riding, and then just plain hiking.) I was even more excited after reading Davids report of what’s out there.
But, Sunday morning came, and I just didn’t feel like getting in my car. After debating it over a cup of coffee, I decided to stay local and do some cleanup.
Behind my house, our community has a swath ofgreen space. Once of the reasons we picked the house we live in is because I wanted trees behind us. (It’s much better than looking at your neighbors porch.) Plus, I was hoping at some point there would be some sort of trail system through it. Besides the remnants of old trails, the other thing back there was a lot of trash. The usual beer cans, and plastic water bottles, and various other stuff. So, I decided to do my late Earth-Day duty, and clean up.
This will give you an idea of what it’s like. You can almost see that we have a stream back there too.
Some deer live back here, but I only saw their tracks today. The stream has a lot of sand, so tracks tend to stand out a lot. I also some some clawed prints, dogs I’m guessing since they were pretty big. (And I don’t think we have wolves or coyote’s back here.)
Wandering through, I quickly filled up my first bag. (Brought 2 grocery bags with me, naively thinking that would last a while.) However, I ran into an inner tube that wouldn’t fit, and some broken PVC pipe that quickly shredded the bag. So I dropped everything to continue on, and figured I’d get it on the way back.
A few minutes later, I noticed a wind-chime hanging from a tree. Given this was quite a ways back in the woods, I’m guessing it’s from a number of years ago. Getting closer, I saw a little garden statue and some plastic trellis with fake flowers. hmmm…maybe it’s a grave site.
I grabbed the rotting basketball that was back there, but left the site untouched for the most part. (I did grab some of the plastic that had blown away.
A little while later, I ran into a downed tree. After using it as a balance beam to walk up to some other trash, I took a look at where it blocked the stream. Sans hip waders and a big net, I did leave most of this mess as-is. It will be a project for another day.
I headed back to the house, grabbed some larger garbage bags and made it back to pick up everything from my piles. I couldn’t help myself, and had to head upstream a little bit to play. There’s another tree across the stream, that was just begging to be crossed. Here I am, midway, about 5 feet about the water, hanging perilously for dear life. (Well, maybe it wasn’t quite that dramatic, but the reflection in the water was pretty cool.)
Back at the house, I surveyed my junk, then headed out for a couple miles on the street so I could feel like I actually covered some miles. Although the basketball and innertube were the big items, I thought the interesting one was a plastic bottle with some foil, which I assume someone was using as a bong. (And heaven help this blog, since now there is a drug reference and I’ll get hit by all the crazies.)
First off, on Saturday I helped my friends at Runners Fit time a race, the 5K Run for a Reason. This is put on by a local church, and benefits go to a home for unwed mothers in Lima, Peru. A worthy cause, and a fun Saturday morning run/walk.
While we were setting up, the race director came over and talked to Ryan about what was going on. Eventually, if came around to “do you want to start the race?” “Sure.” A few minutes later, Ryan looked at me and said “do you want to do it?”
Come on, a megaphone and a 150 people staring at me. Like you even need to ask. Of course! There were a couple things about race numbers to say, but otherwise a simple “ready-set-go.” Sounds easy enough…then I started thinkg…Hey, can I just say whatever I want? Am I allowed to randomly speak to entertain everyone while we waited for the signal that it was time? Hmm…
I ended up with just a simple joke of “hey, who’s just here for the bananas?” (To which a couple of the people responded “no, the oranges.”) Then, the clock people gave the thumbs up, so I gave the Go, and they were off. I would have said more if it was a microphone; speaking into a megaphone doesn’t quite do it for the rockstar life. But either way, it was exciting for me.
Sunday brought me to the Gwinnett Environmental Center for a training run with GUTS. I’ve been there once, and been wanting to go back. The trails are a bunch of short loops, which strung together can make a decent training run. There are some short, steep hills to get the lungs working. And there is a spur that heads out to the greenway path that goes behind the Mall of Georgia–flat as a pancake, but the scenery is nice.
There were 5 of us, which is a pretty small group for these runs. I’ll assume everyone was busy tapering for Strolling Jim in a couple weeks. Thats okay, still had a fun time with a hour and a half wandering around. I hung out with Brad, and we strolled around, not pushing real hard. (Still not sure what’s happening with my ankle, but didn’t want to risk making it worse.) Afterwards, we socialized and ate for a while, and posed for the obligatory group photo.
Ah, now a relaxing Sunday afternoon. Even caught the last hour of the Acoustic Sunrise. (And as a bonus, since I had the computer handy, was able to look up the name on songs I liked, something I can’t do while listening when running.)
(Oh, and for the record, you can’t see it too well at this resolution, but I’m wearing the broken watch. And having just been motivated by Atayne, I think I’ll keep using it until the rest of the band wears out.)
Let’s step back in time a little bit: Summer, 1988, a good two or three weeks into Army basic training, Fort Dix, New Jersey.
Thinking ahead (which for a teenager is impressive in itself), I bought a watch to take when I left for the Army. It was a pretty Timex, with both analog and digital. Looked good and told me the time. However, as I found out once I got there, it wasn’t built for “combat training.” Within two weeks, the face had shattered, leaving me without a watch. So, on our first opportunity to get to the PX, I perused the selection, and seeing the CasioG-Shock, decided it looked rugged and claimed to be indestructible, so I got it.
It lasted for the rest of basic and through advanced training with no problem, as you can see it all pretty in this picture.
Army Advanced Training, 1988.
My next stop was Korea, where I spent a year doing my duty. Often during my duties, in the middle of the night and bored, I’d fiddle with my watch. Eh, more correctly, I took it off and tried to destroy it. I’d smash it on the table and kick it around. Apparently, there is a bit of wimp in me, because the only thing I could accomplish was a couple scratches on the band. And trust me, I worked pretty hard at hitting it, after all, I was bored and had to see if the advertising of it being indestructible was true. So far, the GShock could handle the shocks.
Looking back, the only thing I didn’t try was running it over with an APC (Armored Personnel Carrier). If I had one now, I’d try it just to see what 14 tons would do.
Here’s a picture from a roadmarch in 1989, where you can see the watch is handling the humidity fine, unlike me.
DMZ-Korea - 1989
After surviving the 4 years in the army, my watch and I ended up in Seattle. During college, I took up SCUBA diving as a hobby. Now, when you dive, watching the time underwater is pretty important. (No, really it is. I’m not being sarcastic.) Being convenient, the good ol’ G-Shock became my timer. Into the water it went with no problems. I’ve hit depths of 90 feet, which is approximately 3 atmospheres of pressure, and it held up well.
(Sorry, I couldn’t find a picture of it underwater.)
And jumping forward to today, I’d been debating getting a new watch for running. I’ve been eying a few different ones, and even went so far as holding them. However, in the end, I decided to stick with old reliable. Its last outing was a couple weeks ago at the ING marathon. And with a difference of watch time to chip time being about 15 seconds, I’d say it worked fine. (The error more being due to me starting and stopping it at the wrong point.)
The last Hurrah! ING Georgia Marathon, 2009
Well, last night I reached in my bag to get something out, and I saw a piece of plastic in the bottom of the pocket. Pulling it out, it says “G-sh” on it, so I figured I should pull the watch out. Lo-and-behold, the whole front bezel has broken off.
Wow, after all these years, it finally broke from casually being thrown in a backpack. Talk about the straw that broke the back.
Waaaahhh…my ankle is bugging me. Not horribly bad, but enough to be annoying and tell me to take it easy for a little while. Given that these days there is nearly perfect running weather, it really is annoying. I guess I’ll get plenty of time to strengthen and stretch now.
One thing I’ve been keeping myself entertained with is keeping up with the Ultra-List. First off, congratulations go out to Andrew Thompson! He is the 8th person to complete the Barkley Marathons, definitely one of the toughest races around. You can read his race report here. (And yes, that is correct. In it’s 23 years, of over 700 starters, there have been only 8 finishers.)
During the race, someone was Twittering status updates. Apparently, this sparked a huge controversy, with alot of people giving their opinions. A good number of them thought that people shouldn’t be doing that during a race. As y’all know, I’m a fan of doing updates. Although I don’t use Twitter myself, I’ve been guilty of doing all sorts of updates during races. I’d like to think that everyone getting the updates enjoy them.
Really surprising to me was the intensity of which people were against this. People were implying that if you had time to send a tweet or an email, then you had no business being out there running. I’d imagine they’d be just as against stopping to take a picture or pausing to smell the flowers. To me, enjoying the journey is a big part of doing any race. And if I want to stop, inhale the fresh air, film a video and send a note to my sweetie, I’m going to do it. So don’t worry, I’ll be sure to keep my updates coming. (And maybe I’ll sign up on Twitter to do it instead of using email and Facebook next time.)
Well, that’s about it for now. Hope to be on the trails soon, especially since the annual Chick-ekiden is coming up.
Sunday, I ran the 3rd annual ING Georgia marathon. My goal, sub-6 and a good time, which i suceeded with. Here are some of my thoughts and highlights.
First off, I went into this one untrained. Now, some people say they haven’t trained because they’ve only done 2 long runs instead of 3 or some-such BS. In my case, I wasn’t trained. My last run was the Black Warrior 50K, in mid-february. It was trail, so barely counts as as training for a road race. I did a 15.5 miler on road a few weeks ago, and was sore for 3 days.
My buddy Patrick (from GUTS) was running too, and he wanted to take it easy, so we hooked up to start and maybe stay together the whole time. His original plan was 5+, so it would work well. While waiting at the beginning, ran into Scott (from Runners Fit) and chatted for a few.
We started pretty dang close to dead last! It was fun. There was a family pushing their son in a wheelchair, and I chatted with them for a few minutes. It was their first time doing this (a 1/2 marathon), and they were in good spirits. We ran into someone else in a wheelchair being accompanied by his family, and they were all friendly and motivated.
As we started off, we rapidly started passing people, which was really exciting, since I so rarely get to do it. (That gets a WooHoo.) The first 4 miles passed by before we knew it, around 48 minutes. 5 miles right at one hour. The 12 minute pace continued for quite a while, which worked for both of us, since it was comfortable and faster than we both planned.
The weather was pretty cool, in the mid 40’s. The wind made it a bit cooler, but it was dry, so not horrible. Towards the end, it cooled down probably 5-10 degrees, just enough to be annoying.
One big part of my race plan was figuring out what to film. I wanted to get a bunch of random people to give shout-outs to all the people I know, but it didn’t quite work. Sorry, I was thinking about y’all…had a list of about 40-50 names to go though. Finding that many people proved to be a bit tough. Oh well…
Mile 7 was good-it was the first person handing out beer. I grabbed a cup and took a few swallows. It was Bud or Miller or something, but hey, I’m not picky during a race. At mile 20, another group was handing some out with pretzels. That was good timing.
Around mile 11, Patrick and I split up. I ran with Mike, a 73 year old doing his 19th marathon. He’s been in the area for the majority of his years, and pointed out every little place along the route. (”I was baptised in this church. So was my daughter and granddaughter.” “I went to high school here 50 years ago.” and things of that sort.)
Around mile 18, I commented to someone about this being a road race as I came up behind him, since he was using trail shoes. We chat for a moment, and then says “didn’t I meet you at the GUTS training run at Jones bridge?” Hehe, small world. It was Steve, and he remember the vest. See, it pays to always wear the same thing. I introduced him to Mike, and last I saw, they were happily chatting away.
At one point, some girls were crossing the street. One was wearing a tank top, so I made some comment about needing to put a jacket on. She just thought I was staring at her chest, which believe it or not, I wasn’t. I was just commenting on it being cold. She made some comment about me being a perve or something. I thought it was pretty funny.
Later on, one of the guys volunteering looked up and yelled “Hey bigRahn!”. Yup, he (John?) recognized the vest. We chatted for a few, and I carried on. Saw another GUTS member helping clean up, the guy I always call Lyle, even though I know it’s not his name. (But I can’t remember what it is.) At one point, I was feeling like I knew everyone!
Running through Piedmont Park, about mile 20-21, was fun. I was feeling really good, and everyone around me looked like zombies. They were all hitting the wall, and giving me the death-stare as I passed them muttering a real peppy “Hey! How are you?” They didn’t have much a sense a humor about it, not sure why.
At mile 23, Georgia State University had an aid station with a brass band out there. That was exciting.
Just like last year, there was some out around mile 25 yelling “1 mile to go”, so you get motivated to move. And then that mile just goes on forever! I think that last 3 miles of the race are in that section…doesn’t help that there isn’t much going on, since it’s in a warehouse district.
Then, you start to hear the loudspeakers and seeing people again. Around a corner, you cross a timing mat, the guy yells you name, and you’re done! WooHoo!
Now, what was great about this race?
The atmosphere was good. Some neighborhoods were quieter than past years, and others were louder. It was fun.
I spent a lot of the race with the same people, talking it up and having a good time. Make the time fly by.
No cramping. No stomach issues. Mostly no pain. Hydration was really good the whole race.
No Wall. I saw a curb around mile 18, but it stayed out of the way. I didn’t start to feel really worn down until the last mile, and I think that was mostly from the cold. Matter of fact, I was probably really annoying people through Piedmont park being all chipper and saying hi when they looked like death warmed over. Ah, good times.
Not one, but two beer stops. Just had a few sips at each one to say I had some.
They were actually calling out names at the finish line, so got to hear myself be famous for a moment. Yeah, it’s the little things that make the difference.
Look back at this, I think this was probably the best marathon I’ve had to date.
Enough of the typing…Here’s the video, decide for yourself. (Some sections missing, so I’ll be putting up a second video soon.)
And one last funny antecdote. I was getting off the train on the way home, and noticed someone hobbling down the stairs. I yelled down something like “Hey, this is the best part!”. I then bounded down the stairs past her. Waiting at the bottom, she caught up and was mad. “Hey, thats no fair! How come you can do that? You must of only run the half.” Nope, I replied with glee, just had a great day.
My last long run was Feb 21 at Black Warrior! Woohoo.
I did 15.5 miles on road a couple weeks ago. It hurt. I didn’t yell Woohoo. However, the 6 miles of trails in the rain garnered a bunch of woohoo-karma.
Oh, yeah…I’ll be taking this one easy. Real, real easy. However, I did decide I’m going to take the woohooing to a new level. Hopefully, I can get a group woohoo going at various point. If you see a dork carrying a small video and yelling alot, that will be me. Be sure to say hi. Woohoo.
(Yes, this is because I got a lot of comments from my video, where people said “gee, you sure woohoo a lot.” Go figure.)
