Race Photos

Here are some photos of the 10k on Thanksgiving. It was a really fun race - especially because I got to spend some time running with my wife and her fam. Is it just me, or do I REALLY need to work on not looking like someone grabbed me in the ass when someone takes my picture? Click on the picture of me while running to see what I mean.

Pre Race

During Race:

Post Race:

Mesa Mi Amigo's Turkey Trot

45:46. 6.214 miles, 7:22 pace. I was originally planning on jogging with my wife, however once I mentioned that I might be able to 'beat the turkey' her relatives (well, my wife as well) convinced me to go all out. For this race, there is a guy who dresses in a full on turkey costume and runs the entire 6.2. He generally races at around a 45 - 48 min 10k, which is about what I was trying to run. So, if I ran a good race, I could probably beat him. I ran a good race :) I actually beat him this year by 7 minutes. I am not sure if he ate too much ham earlier in the day (he wouldn't have ate turkey!) or what as he missed his goal by 4 min or so, finishing at 52 min.

The funny thing is that I couldn't really see behind me very well, so I kept thinking that he was RIGHT behind me! So, I couldn't do anything but keep pouring it on with a 45 min finish in mind.

Overall place: 195/2141
Gender place: 164/1080
Age group place: 18/136

Happy Thanksgiving

Just a quick post to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving! I am getting ready to head to the 10K, hoping that (for my wife's sake) that the rain holds off. I love the rain, love running in it more, but I love it less when my wife complains about the rain. :)

Ideas for MANcation

My wife is going to be out of town the weekend of 12/5. As a result, I am free and clear for a full 3 days (Friday - Sunday). She is going to be attending the State of Iowa Drill Team competition where a cousin of her's is a competitor.

So, I need ideas from the blogosphere on what I should do! I'll likely do lots of fun man things including:

Go for a nice long run
Spend some quality time writing up some blogs
Watch a movie where everything eventually explodes and everyone dies
Go to the wine store
Drink wine purchased at the wine store
Drunk post some things on facebook

What else do I need to add to the list!?

Valley Of the Sun!

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I have been busy getting ready for a much needed vacation. Currently I am sitting here in Phoenix watching it rain. We are supposed to get 0.5" of rain - this in a town that only gets 8" of precip a year. Not exactly the sunny 80 degree weather that I was hoping for. However, like my father in law says, a rainy day on vacation is better than a sunny day at work. He is right.

Activities for this week of sun rain include: Buy a watch for myself (discussed here), run the turkey trot 10k, eat my weight in turkey, and watch the new bond movie. Not too full of an agenda, but just full enough!

I'm really excited for the 10k, not because I'll be running it my fastest, but because I will get to run it with the fam. It should be a good time!

11/23 Run

3 miles, 7:45 pace. Today's run was actually a lot faster than I wanted to go - which I guess is both good and bad. I didn't dig out my Garmin, so I didn't have any accurate split times to know how far I had gone as the minutes tick by.

Things on the leg front are good. My leg didn't bother me too much. It didn't bother me enough to slow me down. I think tomorrow will be the real test... if it isn't sore at all, I know that I am on the mend. However, if it is sore, I may have to amputate.

11/20 Run

2 miles 8:00ish pace. It was FAR too cold to run outside so this was on the treadmill. Foot and leg felt about the same - which was fine to finish but not good enough that I'd like to run an entire marathon on it.

Until I start running on a regular basis, daily running posts for me! I'll go back to weekly once I get back on a routine. Hopefully my foot/leg issues are on the mend.

Sucky stocks

I think that it will come as no surprise that the stock purchases that I spoke of recently are in the shitter. They are essentially off about 40% - which is about what the NYSE is off for the year. I bought basically blue chip companies so that makes sense that they would track to the overall market.

However, this post isn’t about my lost money. No, this post is about those “sad stock broker” pictures that you see in the paper or on the web when things are bad. Who are these guys and why are they always rubbing their head when things are bad? I’m not sure, but I think that there is a Budweiser real men of genius commercial in here somewhere…..

Bye bye crackberry

I recently read on cnn.com that President Elect Obama is going to likely have to stop using his blackberry when he becomes President. Does this sound like a stupid idea to anyone else? The thought behind it is that because it is a formal written record, “any email can be subpoenaed by Congress and courts and may be subject to public records laws, so if a president doesn't want his e-mail public, he shouldn't e-mail”.

Everyone knows that email is not a private form of communication. I understand fully that every email that I send out using my work server gets saved forever. For example, a very long time ago on one of my first projects, a teammate got into a bit of a sticky situation because of some joke forwards that he had sent a client. My firm was able to pull the emails out of the archives and ‘prove’ what he was doing. However, just because it isn’t totally private, that doesn’t mean that the President should have to totally abandon what is a very efficient form of communication.

Sure, face to face communication is great, but if the President could sit down an hour a day and knock out a few dozen emails I’m almost positive that we would have either solved world hunger or accomplished world peace.

Slanket

For some reason I got on Skymall's mailing list. Actually, as I type that I know the reason - my bro in law gave me one of the wine cork push pin board kits ordered through there. I'm still working on getting enough corks to fill it. Anyway, a few flights back, my wife saw a this little ditty in there- The "slanket":

http://www.skymall.com/shopping/detail.htm?pid=102531784&c=

It is part blanket, part sweater, all skymall. This item is now at the top of her Christmas list. When Tera, whom I work with, asked about what my wife wanted, I came across the picture below and wondered aloud... "Why does everyone look like a huge tool in skymall pictures?" If you can answer that I've got two gold stars with your name on them.

11/17 Run!!!!!

1 mile, 8:11 pace. Doesn't seem like a lot, but it was a great stepping stone to getting back into the swing of running. Depending on what I have going on tonight with work, I may try to get in 2 miles to see how it goes.

Overall there was no "pain" my left leg/foot just felt a little odd. I could tell that there was a bit of tightness in it, so it was probably good to get out on it.

I'm still going to try to build up enough to run the 10k - time will tell!

My First 10k

This weekend I signed up for my first non marathon sanctioned race – the Mesa Mi Amigo's Turkey Trot. It is a 10k race in Mesa, AZ. As many of you know, I have not been running due to either a strained calf muscle or more likely a stress fracture of my tibia, so this race should be interesting. I am going to try to run a mile tonight to see how it goes. My goal will be to lightly jog this 10k, however if I have to walk it with my wife that will be fine too. Unfortunately I know that I will be no where close to my goal of finishing a 10k in under 45 minutes. However, I get a finishers ribbon and a free tshirt for my $20 entry fee – what could be better!?

Amazing

If I had to use a word to describe my recent New Orleans trip, I’d have to use “amazing”. I had a great time and have lots of fun pictures to prove it. Check them out here.

http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.ricklefs/NewOrleans2008#

If you don’t like to click on links (and who does) here are a few of my favorites in chronological order:

The hotel that we stayed in was the Pierre Marquette Renaissance hotel. We were upgraded to a suite upon check in which was probably bigger than my first apartment.


Friday started with some beignets at Café Dumont and a tour of the French Quarter which included St Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square.


Next up was lunch and dinner. What would New Orleans be without a bit of brown bagging on the street?


We went out that night to bourbon street (among other places). While I didn’t have a hand grenade, I did have a hurricane!

Finally on the trip, we spent some time in Cajun country and had a real live crab boil. It was an experience to be sure.

Poor Planning

I am going to be in training for the next two days, so it will be radio silence on the blog until then. That is, unless I have some time tonight to get a few blog posts scheduled for Thursday and Friday. (I didn’t) The training will hopefully be fun, although I think that it will likely be a bit droning at times.

The thing that frustrates me the most is that the training has been very poorly planned. The training was short notice, the duration is continuously changing, and they just seem to have locked down what we are going within the last two days. In fact, I got an email on Tuesday saying that we will be going to a jacket required restaurant on Thursday night. Now, I’ve been to this restaurant and it is incredible. It is great that the firm is taking us there and I am very appreciative. However, since I am already in St Louis at my client, I will have no way of obtaining a jacket. Therefore, I have to wear a loaner. Annoying. I’ve joked with friends that I hope it is either a plaid jacket or one with a big security badge on the breast pocket. Maybe I could valet a few cars and make a few extra bucks!

Humility

Humility is having a pretty good workout (going up 10 lbs on lat pull down), having a bunch of high school kids coming up to the hotel gym, and one of them laying down on the bench press and knocking out two reps of the ENTIRE machine’s worth of weight. It wouldn’t have been bad if they were weight lifting types – but they were wearing all black, chuck taylors, and jeans!

Yeah, well I can buy beer, so suck on THAT! :-D

PHX Transfer Update

My office transfer for work is now complete. The online directory was updated over the past weekend, so I have started to receive messages from various people who have found out that I am moving (but for one reason or another have not been notified). As I looked myself up, I will admit that it was a bit odd if not a bit sad to see myself as a Phoenix ‘resident’. I now have a PHX based phone number and address and will be added to the PHX office communications.

I have really grown to enjoy Kansas City and agree with a teammate that the move is almost like a slow death. I finally decided to move to PHX a very long time ago however it won’t be complete until June. Parts of me wishes that it would just happen now where as other parts of me want to enjoy the last moments that I have in KC. My wife and I have created a home where we are now and it will be hard to leave. Hopefully June will come soon so that the anticipation will be over.

Empowering

I enjoy Southwest airlines. As a result, I chose to fly them to and from New Orleans instead of taking a direct American Airlines flight. Honestly, it was a pain in the ass. I had to leave lunch early and I missed out on Thursday night fun / etc. So, it was especially bitter when my flight was ultimately canceled due mechanical issues and I had to catch a different flight. BUT, this post isn’t about how Southwest screwed me over... it is about how they empower their employees.

I had two options as a result of my canceled flight and missing my connection. I could spend the night in New Orleans and try again the next day or take the first leg and spend the night in Dallas, get up and fly to St Louis. My wife was coincidentally on the same plane as me for the first leg of my flight, continuing on to Kansas City. If I could get to KC, I could just catch the early 6.20 flight and be into St Louis by 7.20. I proposed this to the gate agent only half expecting that she would be able to do it. She was. Southwest enabled her to check flight availability and book me an entirely new one way flight from KC to STL on the spot. No charge. I think that everyone should be empowered in their work. I try to manage that way because I feel that when you give people control most often than not they will make the right decisions.

So, while it was a sucky situation, there was nothing anyone could do about it (a pito tube was broken), Southwest made the best of it. Now, getting 4 hours of sleep after a fun weekend? Not exactly a full reversal of the sucky situation.

Week of 11/3….biking

Nobody says that they wish they hadn't run today….. I could go for a run right about now....


11/4 – 15 miles on the bike at ~20 mph
11/5 – 26 miles on the bike at 22 mph

My knee was a bit sore after the ‘long’ ride on the 5th. I think that the cause is a combination of things, but I suppose that the good news is that I will likely not be doing anything until Monday at the earliest.

New Orleans

I am going to be in New Orleans this weekend with my wife and my team. A member of the team grew up in the area, so we’re getting a “Beyond Bourbon St Tour” (my words, not his). That said, I anticipate that we’ll find a bit of our time spent on bourbon St as well. As I was signing off AIM heading to the airport, I told Nick adios to which we had the following series of text messages:

Nick: Have a safe trip, get some beads for me
Adam: What I just read was ‘Frunk dial me from Bourbon St’…... Consider it done!
Nick: I am not sure what ‘frunk dialing’ is, but it sounds illegal

Hopefully I don’t get too frunk - whatever that is.

Medal Display

I recently posted a message on the Runners World forum asking the group what they do with their finisher’s medals. I’ve received a few interesting responses as well as a few responses I expected. To summarize, the responses can generally be categorized as (in order of frequency:

• Box in the closet



• Pin them to a corkboard



• Hang them in my office



• Give them to my kids



• Put them in a scrapbook



• Donate them to the Special Olympics

I was honestly hoping that more people had good responses on the scrapbook front. I will admit that the following metal wall hang things made by “Luv Pre” are VERY cool. I am thinking that I may hit him up to see what it would cost to get hold of one of them. It could be something that I could hang in my office at home. That way, not many people would see them (I try to not be overly boastful about my running), but at the same time I would be reminded of my past accomplishments. More to come on this I am sure.

Luv Pre's medal displays:

Take THAT Steve Jobs

A few more funnies from http://www.ruminations.com......


No, actually I don't want to download the newest iTunes 8.01. I was totally content with the last 56 versions you produced. Unfortunately I've checked your website and there doesn't seem to be a "Download iTunes once then leave me the fuck alone" option. With all these asinine upgrades it's a good thing Apple didn't invent the wheel...

The only thing worse than being laid off and looking for a job in this shitty economy is having people enviously talk about the amount of free time you must have. The next person that asks what I do all day is going to get smacked in the face with the "help wanted" section.

The worst consequence of the American election being almost over is that Saturday Night Live is going to start sucking again.

I recently got engaged and the ring was inscribed with the words PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE. We took the ring to get sized and when my bf gave it back to me, the past and present were erased and all that is left of our future... F U.

Food Favs

A friend of a friend recently sent out a survey asking a few brief questions about everyone’s restaurant tastes. She ultimately wants to open her own place and is doing some very wise due diligence. (If you are interested, send a note to restaurantdream@gmail.com and tell her that you want to take the survey.) One of the questions asked what my favorite restaurants were and why. Below are my responses. It was actually quite a bit more difficult than I thought that it was going to be. I went back and forth on type of food vs atmosphere of the place, vs a million other factors. Try it yourself! I think that you’ll be surprised at how hard it actually is:

Name your 2 favorite restaurants for each meal: (it is okay if a restaurant makes more than one list!)

Breakfast

• I’m not picky here. It is really hard to screw up eggs – usually when I go somewhere for breakfast it is with people that I enjoy so they all seem good!
• I will say that any breakfast place that also has good coffee (maybe even a special roast) is usually pretty high up on the list. Bonus points for calling me ‘hon’ when I order. “Whut can I getcha hon?”

Lunch

• Subway. Cheap, easy, simple…..fast, customizable, gosh I could think of a million adjectives! Honestly though, there is a local chain in KC that beats subway hands down – Mr. Goodsense. They slice their meat/cheese off of block meat/cheese right in front of you!
• Any Mongolian BBQ (flat top grill) place. I like it because if you screw it up, it is your own fault!

Dinner

• If I am going to splurge, I really love fondue. It is more of a dining experience. It takes forever, so you can’t shovel food in – you actually have to talk to the person that you’re sitting with.
• Cheesecake factory. Not for the deserts though – they have SO many choices for entrées that I have yet to find something that I didn’t love.

On hold

I haven’t posted an update on my running so I thought that it was about time that I did. Unfortunately, the running is still on hold. I REALLY wish that I had a different update to report – but I don’t. As my leg takes longer and longer to heal, I must admit that I dinged it pretty good. In all fairness, I didn’t think that it was that bad when I was running on it – but I guess it was. I'm still biking away with the goal of a 30 mile and a 12 mile ride this week.

So, against my wishes, I’m not running on it until there is no pain at all. Unfortunately, I think that this means that I probably won’t put any real weight on it until Thanksgiving or so. So, I probably won’t be “running” the 5K/10K that I wanted to but I may walk it with my wife. My goal of a 20min 5K and a 45min 10K will have to wait.

However, I anticipate that I will eventually get back on the wagon. So, I have started to look for some spring races. I am almost certainly doing the Fargo, ND marathon on May 9th but would also like to find out in the April timeframe. Does anyone have any suggestions??

Halloween

I thought that I should add my Halloween pics to the swell of costumed blog postings that seem to be flooding my blog reader. I went as Napoleon Dynamite which I seem to have pulled off quite well. My wife was feeling a bit under the weather, so we didn't go out - but I would like to think that I could have held my own during any Halloween costume contest.

The sad thing was that only one kid recognized who I was when we were handing out candy..... however 2 or 3 parents recognized me. Bummer.

Violated

My in-laws house was broken into sometime on Friday. Luckily no one was home but the burglars did make off with quite a bit of stuff. They stole jewelry, iPods, cell phone chargers, money, and a flat screen TV. The last item is VERY suspicious because they had a repairman in the house the day before fixing that very TV. From the descriptions that I have been hearing the burglars really knew what they were doing. They almost knew a little too much what they were doing – like the repairman from the day previous was part of the robbery. Of course, this isn’t CSI, and therefore no connection will likely ever be able to be made.

My car has been broken into before. After I got into the car, I was struck by a very odd feeling. I wasn’t mad that my car stereo was gone. I was mad that someone had been inside of my car without my permission. I expect that once the dust settles, my in-laws will feel the same way. Either way, it is a shitty situation. My wife and I spoke and other than a pool, a security system is a must in our new house.

Three Blind Mice

Let me start this post by saying that I live in a very clean house. Honestly, my wife is rather neurotic about keeping everything clean. That said, on Friday night, we had a little visitor. A mouse! We had finished handing out candy for Halloween, were sitting on the couch watching TV, and he ran from the half bath to under the TV. My wife of course freaked out and I honestly was a bit confused as to why she was yelling so much.

Once I figured out why she was yelling, I immediately sprung into action - however my efforts were for naught. He was too fast for me. So, I sent my wife to Wal-Mart to get some mouse traps. We baited them up and set them everywhere. The mouse however would not be caught that night. So, while I was getting my hair cut the next day, she did a little bit of online research. She found a battery powered mousetrap that seemed to be very bizarre. It shocks and kills the mouse. How did it work? Yup, you guessed it….. Dead mouse on Sunday morning. So, I had to eat some crow AND empty out the dead mouse. Loose loose.