Week of 4/27 Runs – Taper?

4/28: 4 Miles, 8:06 pace

4/29: 0 Miles.

4/30: 0 Miles.

Opps!  I am trying to take my taper seriously, but I think that I may have taken it a bit TOO seriously.  I went from running 40 miles per week to 5.  Hmm, probably not the best idea.  I’ll actually get in 18 miles this week, but that is going to be 4 fewer than I was supposed to run and it is going to be completely out of schedule.  I ran the 4 as planned on Tuesday, I’ll run my Wednesday run on Friday, and I’ll run my long run on Saturday. Confused?  You should be – my head is spinning, but more on that later. 

The run on Tuesday was fine, but my legs felt really sluggish.  I am sure that it was because I hadn’t run in a few days and I needed to shake the rust off.  Because of this I’m going to run a short 2 miles the day before the race – just to make sure that I am still limber and ready to rock the face off of Fargo.

My run on Wednesday didn’t occur for a few reasons. Well, one – work.  I had an all day meeting on Wednesday that I needed to prep for the night before so I didn’t get to bed late and I had to be at the meeting a full 1.5 hours earlier than I normally start.  I figured getting 6 hours of sleep and not running was probably better than getting 4 and putting in the miles.  *shrugs* Who knows.

My run on Thursday (today) didn’t occur as scheduled because I went out with a coworker and ended up a bit over-served.  Hey, it was all you could eat flatbread and all you could drink wine for $15.  There was actually someone with me while I was drinking this time so no one can say anything! :)  How was I to know that it is hard to keep track of how much you drank when you only fill you wine glass 1/3 full – about 8 times.  Either way it was fun to finally get out in Atlanta and enjoy some of the city.  If you are ever in the area, I highly suggest Urban Flats http://www.urbanflats.net/.

Baseball and Hogs

Two things today…

This past weekend, my wife and I went to what may be our last home Royals baseball game.  They played the Tigers and were able to easily win.  (Of course, the Tigers proceeded to piss pound the Royals in each and every game that remained in the series, but that is another matter all together)  It was probably some of the most fun that I’ve had in a baseball game in a while, if not ever.  Was this because I am a crazy baseball fan and looove watching me some baseball?  Oh no.  Was it because of watching all of the crazies at the baseball game gorge themselves on $1 hotdogs?  Ohhhh yes.  We went on dollar night where you could get dollar hot dogs, pop (NOT soda you east/west ‘coasters), and peanuts.  People LOADED up on each.  I honestly wanted to do the same but the lines were crazy long and I was too enamored by the new HD jumbotron.  

This season, KC put in the largest jumbotron in North America.  Suck it University of Texas!  Of course, not to be outdone, I think that the new Cowboys stadium is going to be bigger – damn.  Hey, it isn’t the size, it is how good it looks, right?  Let’s hope so.  

Check the before and after:

The second thing that I wanted to rant about, is the F*ing Swine Flu.  Is anyone else tired of hearing about this?  IT IS THE FLU!?  36,000 people die of the flu each year!  What makes this flu any special than any other that I have to get hourly updates from Sanjay Gupta on CNN about the current ‘status’ of the ‘outbreak’.  50 people in the US is NOT an outbreak.  3 people died in Mexico.  Horrible?  Yes.  Worth thinking about more than I think about NORMAL flu? Nooooooooo

When asked on CNN how this was any different than the normal flu, Sanjay replied that “we have never seen this flu before”.  For some reason I really doubt that is worth all of the press coverage this topic is getting….and I KNOW that it wasn’t worth my client sending out a corporate wide email reminding everyone to be calm and take appropriate action where necessary.  What would the appropriate action be?  Not lick doorknobs (real doorknobs, no innuendo there at ALL)?  It is going to be hard, but I’ll try my best.  Seriously, I want to get back to the latest on Lindsey Lohan’s latest escapades.  Hasn’t she ran over someone lately with her Mercedes or something?

Zap Zap!

I don't get a lot of email forwards, but thankfully that means that what email forwards I do get are farily high quality. Since I fly so much, I found this one particularly interesting. I was forwarded an email with the three images below included from my pilot brother in law. Lightning had hit the plane mid flight.

The email that I was sent said "I wonder what the pilot's pants looked like after this one!?"

04/25 Weekend Run

12 miles 8:16 Pace.  No HR details (I don’t want to screw up my shirtless tan!)

Today’s run was on Saturday this weekend for two reasons.  First, I wanted to get out an enjoy some of the weather.  It was the first time of the year that I was able to run without a shirt on and I LOVED it.  No nipple chaffing, nipple burn, or nipple bleeding which is VERY nice.  Of course, I can’t say the same for the cars full of people that I likely scared along the way.  Second, I wanted to change my long run to Saturday because the Fargo marathon is on a Saturday.  I seem to run a lot of races that are on Saturday.  Two out of four of my marathons have been on Saturdays.  Well, I guess including Fargo, it will be 3 out of 5.

The run started out well and continued to go well the entire time.  I basically started running east and didn’t stop until I hit 6 miles.  Little did I know that this would mean that I would run over some hills that rivaled the Egyptian pyramids.  Since I didn’t wear my HR monitor, I instead added elevation to my graph below.  Nuts right?  Also, to show how boring I am when I run (hello, my blog name?), I’ve added my course route via Garmin’s built in GPS functionality.  Nice and straight.

The one thing that was annoying about this run was that I found it hard to regulate my pace.  I was always bouncing back and forth between uphill and downhill which meant for some reason that I averaged a bit faster than I would have liked for my long run.

Easy there buddy

I think that Scott Adams struck a nerve.  You know, that one really annoying ‘funny bone’ nerve that is in your elbow.  You hit it and everyone around laughs at you while you hold a numb but at the same time throbbing arm.  Yeah, that one.  I normally agree with about everything that he says, but his blog post the other day seemed to fly in the face of conventional wisdom.  He argued that all runners will eventually wear out their knees, be unable to run, and turn into huge fat blobs on the couch similar to the people in Wall-E. Hmmmm.  Well, maybe he didn’t reference Wall-E, but that was the intent.

He has had some very interesting posts as of late.  He has given his theories on economics, green home building, and even the occasional mention of his restaurants, but the pros and cons of long term physical fitness?  Didn’t we learn about that in elementary school Phys Ed?  I’m not sold.  He goes on to say that his sports of choice, soccer and tennis, are much better long term for your body while still providing positive cardiovascular benefits.  Now, I can’t argue if those two are better than running, but I did find this this this and this article that speak to the long term benefits of running or the fact that running actually isn’t all that hard on your knees.  What now funny man?

I suppose that his argument does hold true if you do actually succumb to his prediction of couch surfing after a career ending injury.  But, I would argue, how often are career ending injuries anyway?  I imagine that doctors can do a lot with surgery and almost everything is able to be fixed.

So, I'm not sure that I can agree with him on this one.  But, you know what they say, 99/100 ain't bad.

So, just to show that I still love Scott Adams, (and since I know that he reads this blog) here are a few of my favorite Dilbert strips.  Stick to the soccer and drawing and I’ll stick to running and both of us will laugh a LOT along the way.

Week of 4/20 Runs – Taper Time!

4/21: 5 miles, 7:48 pace

4/22: 5 miles, 8:11 pace

4/23: 5 miles, 8:04 pace

Tuesday:  Do you ever have those days where you are tired of the norm and just want to push it?  Today was one of those days for me.  I had a pretty good 20 mile run so I wanted to see what I could do on sorta tired legs just 1.5 days after my run.  I tried to hold steady at about 7:50 which would be somewhere between half MP and MP.  On average I did a pretty good job.  My mile times were: 8:14 (warm up), 7:46, 7:46, 7:53, 7:21.  I really let loose on the last mile and ran at about 10K pace.  Because of some nagging joint stuff, I haven’t done any speedwork for about two months.  I

 figure that this was a good tempo-ish run to get my legs used to turning over as fast as they are going to need to during the Fargo marathon.

Wednesday:  Today’s run was interesting.  I have a bullet in my ‘post ideas’ file about forgetting

 to put on your pants before lacing up your shoes and about walking out the door.  Well, I have never actually walked out the door, but I have been close.  Verrrry close.  Hand on the doorknob ready to walk out close.  Anyway, I wear platellar straps for some runner’s knee that I am going to have researched when I am done with this training cycle.  But, until then, I need to wear them to avoid pain right behind my kneecaps.  During today’s run it wasn’t until mile two that I realized that I completely forgot to put on my knee straps / braces.  Crap.  So, I turned straight around to avoid doing any harm.  I was able to get in 5 miles, but that was

 just short of the 8 that I had on the schedule.

Thursday: Another 5 miler.  I wish that I had some interesting story about this one, but I don’t.  I ran this one at basically MP which I probably shouldn’t have done.  I’m using a modified Hal Higdon Intermediate II schedule and in his notes he said that during the taper you keep up the intensity but move down the overall mileage.  So, it is really Hal’s fault that I ran this one so fast, right?

Hump Day Musings

• My marathon ‘taper’ has officially begun.  I’m not running much less now, but I will very shortly.  Hopefully I can work on throttling back my food intake before then.  I did some rough calculations and I’m at about 2700 cals or so a day!  Bring on the feed bag! Nom Nom Nom Nom
  
• Speaking of eating a lot, I was on the phone with my mom yesterday talking about how I was going to go get dinner at California Pizza Kitchen.  Since I am traveling alone in Atlanta, she said “Oh, do they have personal pizza’s there?”.  Uhhhhhhh…..  The answer is that is a biiiig NO.  I pretty much clear a normal medium pizza on my own now.  Thanks mom! :) Ha! I did NOT mention that in addition to my pizza I had bought a bottle of wine to drink….by myself….  In my defense, California Pizza Kitchen wouldn’t let me take beer to go.  I asked.
  
• Even though it is Earth Day, for some reason I can’t really get into the spirit.  Since I grew up on a farm, I always think of plants in a more utilitarian way than something that should be taken care of.  In my world, plants are a ‘tool’.  Their purpose is to produce something.  That said, I do ENJOY the Earth so I guess I should celebrate that we have it and try to keep it around for a few more years.  Hey, I DID choose the SUV rental over the Mustang. That has got to be a start right?  Baby steps.
• Every few months I get in a bit of a funk.  I’m in one of those right now.  I’m sure it is just some sort of hangover from all of the stress in my life lately (or maybe the wine last night?).  The good thing is that they usually don’t last long.  Before I know it I’m back to my annoyingly chipper self.
  
• I think what may bring me out of the funk is the awesome weather.  Based on what Al Rocher told me this morning, most of the US should have great weather for the next 2 or 3 days.  Get out an enjoy it.  I’m going to try to do the same!
  
• Finally, since I am cranking out as many Microsoft Word docs as a teenager with turrets drops F-bombs, I’ll leave you with a very relevant quote I saw on a website: "Fragment (consider revising)" has got to be the most useless grammatical suggestion ever in Word.
  

Perception

The perception that people have of you is an interesting thing.  Do people you meet perceive you as nice, caring, friendly, assertive, or rude?  Do people think that you are very high maintenance – or frugal?  Most importantly, do you even care?

Being a consultant, I am probably hyper sensitive to the perception that work people have of me.  I could care less about non work people…. :) Well, to be honest I am a pretty non-confrontational guy, so I guess that isn’t even all that true.  For work I’m always trying to balance being myself (which is what you’ll get 90% of the time), being authoritative, being opportunistic, and most recently being a spendthrift.  Of course, being a spendthrift isn’t TOO much of a stretch – I have been known to be VERY cheap.

You see, I travel for work.  Unfortunately, my travel expenses were not budgeted for and therefore are under constant scrutiny.  Not anything that I am too horribly concerned with because (generally speaking) I always work to reduce costs wherever possible.  However, this week I had to deal with a bit of a perception issue.  You might say that I was one of those street performers and I had to convince you that I was going to use the money to feed my kids and not to buy beer, drugs, or a hooker on Craigslist.

You see, when I went to pick up my rental car I was greeted with a bright red 2009 Mustang GT.  Oyy!!  It was even a hard top – not the ugly soft top convertible.  Previously, I would have

 jumped right in and tore out of the Hertz lot tires smoking all the way, Bon Jovi playing, with my head out the window and hands in the air.  In fact, I’ve done that

 many weeks before at other clients.  But not this week.  Unfortunately, even though I pay for the cheap midsize car, Hertz has been upgrading me lately – a lot.  I usually have SUVs and even had a Jetta last week (it was fun).  Well, my main client director has been giving me a hard time when we go to lunch about my upgrades (in jest… I think).  So, what was I to do?

I squished the little car guy in my gut into a little ball and switched the car out.  I didn’t want to deal with the perception that I was tooling around on the company dime in a Mustang.  

Does this happen to anyone else or it is just me and my random consulting lifestyle?

4/19 Long Run

20 miles, 8:24 pace, 179 average HR.

Today's run started out a bit late (9:30am) but still turned out to be a pretty good.  I was able to hold my pace for the entire run - even getting in a few miles around 14 - 17 at MP.  I've wanted to try that on a few of my longer runs, but I either hadn't been feeling up to it or didn't remember to do it.

This was probably the best I've felt after a 20 miler.  I was able to be fairly coherent almost immediately after the run and didn't completely collapse on the carpet.  I had only minimal pain in my ankle that didn't slow me down in the slightest.  I feel that the icing that I've been doing after the runs is really starting to pay dividends.  I will say that I sort of cheated on my time/pace though.  I took a bit of a bathroom break around mile 13 and shut off the timer on my watch once I had entered a stall.  I then started it back up as soon as I hit the ground running again.  It probably added an additional 45 seconds to the run as my pace for that mile was 9:15, but my HR was able to go all the way down to 130 while I was in there.  Of course, had this been during a real race, I'm sure it would have added an extra 2-3 minutes.  Best to make sure that doesn't happen in a month.

Afterwards, my wife and I treated ourselves to massages at Massage Envy.  Mine was good, hers was very bad.  Hopefully she'll have time this week to go back again and correct some of the damage that was done.  She said it was very painful - and not in the good 'get the knots out' kind of a way.  Blah.

I am officially a grown up now

There are a lot of milestones in life.  Being able to drive, vote, buy beer, get cheaper insurance (25), getting married, etc.  The list goes on and on.  Late this week I realized that I may have officially crossed another very major milestone.  I think that I am going to have to shave every day.

So, to answer the question that I know you have in your mind: Yes. I am a little girl.

Up until this point, I haven’t had to shave but every other day.  In fact, on the weekends, I

regularly go every third day.  I was able to pull this off because of a combination of having blond hair and just plain ‘ol not having a lot of hair.  In fact, I don’t have much hair at all on my arms, I have a no hair on my back (yay), and I have only a bit of hair on my chest (need to do more manly things to ‘earn’ that according to my dad).  So, depending on how you look at it, I have been fairly lucky.

That isn’t to say that I don’t have hair in spots.  For example, I have crazy bad old man hair on my ears that bugs the shit out of me.

But, my good fortune has run out and I am now a man.  I’ll now have to plan on an extra 5 minutes per day to shave off the man fur.  This is going to directly reduce the time that I am able to spend with my buddy Al Rocher.  Who knows, maybe I’ll accidentally sprout a chest hair now.

Week of 4/13 Runs

4/15: 5 miles, 8:10 pace

4/16: 10 miles, 8:27 pace

4/17: 5 miles, 8:07 pace

Wednesday: Like I said earlier, I had to push back all of my runs by a day because I took Monday off to move.  To be honest, I would have rather ran.  Either way, I took the extra day’s rest to turn this run Wednesday run into a MP run.  It felt good to stretch my legs and really push the pace.  My goal pace is right at 8:00, so I was close enough if you take the stoplights and general slowdowns into account.  I honestly think that holding this pace for the entire race in 4 weeks will be a stretch.

Thursday: 10 miles – fail.  I really hate to say that because my pace was actually right on target,

 but this was not a good run.  Like I said earlier, I got really cold and looking at my splits, I think

 that I tried to run too fast and bonked towards the end.  My splits were really inconsistent at

 8:17, 8:08, 8:10, 8:39, 8:24, 8:47 (!!), 8:43, 8:25, 8:45, 8:10.  Ah well, live and learn.  These 10 mile runs are always tough while on the road

 because I don’t bring my water bottle (so, no water for all 10 miles) and only recently have been eating anything during the run.  The night before the 10 miler, I went to Target to pick up a few things including some sport beans or a gel.  No dice – they were sold out or something.  So, I considered a powerbar but they only had Vanilla…..PASS.  So, what did I go with?  Gushers!  They are really soft, they have a lot of sugar, and they taste really good.  Why have I not thought of this before?

Friday: Damn, didn’t get any slower on this one.  I am really going to try to throttle back my long 20 miler this weekend to a 8:40 or so pace.  I assume that with my faster runs mid week, this will not be a problem.  The good news is that I was able to wear a sweatshirt, so instead of freezing, I was a bit warm.  I think after Thursday’s run, I’ll take a bit warm vs cold.  But, come talk to me in three months when I am in Phoenix..  Whew.

Burrrrrr

I got in my 10 miles today – but it was tough… Tougher than it should have been for some reason – but more on that tomorrow.  I’m a day behind on my running because I took Monday off and had to fly on Tuesday so I wonder if that had anything to do with it? 

Anyway, I wanted to see if this happens to anyone.  Today, while I was out for ~85 min, I got cold.  Really cold.  I had on long pants but had totally forgotten a long sleeved shirt but decided just to tough it out in my turkey trot Tshirt.  For the second half of the run, my wrists and forearms were so cold they got really stiff and I could barely move them.  Does that happen to anyone else when they are out and get super cold?  

For the most part I am all warmed up, but I think that my thumb got a BIT too cold….  It feels really strange.  Kinda numb, but kinda stiff?  I sure hope that doesn’t mean frostbite.  Lesson learned, I suppose.  If I end up with some sort of black thumb I'll be sure to post pictures.

The Tax Man Cometh

Well, today is the day.  TAX DAY!  I'm a dork so I've had mine done for a while, but I know that some people are stressing about it.  Good luck!  You’ll need it.  I won’t want to get too political, but I will just say that I agree with Ben Franklin – death and taxes – gotta have them.  Unless I can find the holey grail that is.  Seriously though, at a minimum, we need taxes to pay for policemen and streetlights.  Everything ELSE is up for debate :)

Caroline sent me a URL yesterday that lists a BUNCH of restaurants that are giving free stuff / discounts to ‘celebrate’ tax day.  Check them out, or just read below!!

Cinnabon: Participating mall-based Cinnabon bakeries will give away free samples of Classic Bites from 5-8 p.m.

MaggieMoo's Ice Cream and Treatery: Participating restaurants will give away one free single-scoop of ice cream.

Chick-Fil-A: Make a purchase and save your receipt. Bring the receipt back within the next 30 days starting April 16 and you can get the same items free.

P.F. Chang's China Bistro will take 15 percent off your entire bill in what the chain is calling a Tax Relief promotion.

TGIFridays: Tax day stress relief at Friday's $5 or $10 Bites Cards with $15 or more purchase

Move is done!

A few thoughts:

• It took a lot longer than I thought that it would.  The movers were there from 8:30 to 2:30.  How could I have that much shit!?  My wife counted and we had over 80 boxes.  Maybe it is time to de-clutter....
  
• I'm going to make 3x as much as I thought that I would on the house sale - SCORE
• The fact that I could be off by a multiple of three tells you how little I expected that I would make.  SUCK
• I was about as emotional as I thought that I would be (I'm a little girl...who is very 'emotional')
  
• I'm now in my corporate apartment which is basically a hotel room.  It is really bizarre to be watching local news in a hotel room.  I watch a LOT of news and that is what I associate each town with.  So it is strange to be in a hotel room watching my buddy Gary Lezak.
• I am not sure where the camera cord is, but I took a million pictures.  I probably won't get those posted until next week.  So, instead, here are a few pictures from a 5K that my wife and I ran (The Olathe 5K). It was supposed to be two weeks ago, but was canceled because of snow.  No race report, but I want to give credit where credit is due.  A new PR! :)
  

There was supposed to be 6-10" of snow.

This is what it looked like at race time..... No snow

Oh wait, here it is at 4:00pm - suck

Now, some 'real' race day pictures a week afterwards

4/12 Weekend Run - Easter Run!

12 miles, 8:21 pace 172 average HR


Today's run was tough. I was tired, my ankle hurt, and it seemed colder than the 45 degrees that the thermometer said. I was able to knock out the miles, but it took a lot more effort than the 8:21 pace would lead on. I'll pause for effect and to take a sip from my baby bottle....

Most of this is my own fault. I had one (Read: 3) too many beers the night before so I didn't sleep all that well and I woke up with a bit of a headache. I also was a bit dehydrated for the same reason. Note to self - do not do this the day before the marathon. I'll log that one in the same spot as "Do not jump in front of oncoming trains" and "Do not try to hold angry cobra snakes".

My ankle was also a bit sore for some strange reason. I'm not sure why it hurt more this morning than any other morning. It has been a bit sore the last two weeks or so, but not so bad that it stopped me from doing anything. I'm going to watch it closely, while still trying to keep up my mileage. Next week is another 40 mile week with my final 20 mile run on the weekend. 4 weeks and counting before the Fargo Marathon!

All in all, I put in 26 miles the week after the marathon - not bad!

Houston, we have a problem

I'll admit, I'm a bit spoiled.

I watch a lot of TV. I've sometimes tried to swing that as a positive since, for the last 4 or 5 years, I've worked in the cable industry. However, I think that I may go through a bit of withdrawal during the next few weeks. You see today I am moving out of my house and into a corporate apartment. The corporate apartment does NOT have DVR! You heard me, I am no longer going to be able to tape shows during the week and watch them on lazy Saturday afternoons nor am I going to be able to fast forward during commercials.

For the most part, we've been able to find our shows online - but there is one very important exception: Deadliest Catch. My favorite show! For some reason I can't find it online! No Hulu.com, no discovery.com, NOTHING! This is bad....very very bad. I'm not talking 'oh no, I broke a nail' bad, I'm talking 'some one kicked my puppy off a bridge' bad.

I think that I can rearrange my schedule to a certain extent to be able to get in my stories, but I am afraid that unless I become a complete hermit, some sacrifices will have to be made. I may have to trim my TV watching even further! This move across the country is not starting on the right foot.

Week of 4/6 Runs

4/7: 4 Miles.  1/2 mile walking at 20:00 pace and 3.5 miles running at 9:00pace

4/8: 5 Miles. 8:36 pace

4/8: 5 Miles. 8:16 pace

Tuesday: Wee doggies.  My bedonkedonk was still on FIRE.  I tried to look up some ‘post marathon recovery’ schedules online, but it seemed like most of them just said something to the effect of: “DO NOT RUN THE WEEK AFTER A MARATHON YOU IDIOT!”.  Soooo, since that advice was dumb, :) I dug even deeper and found that a lot of them suggested that if you were stupid enough to keep plugging away, you should mostly just walk.  So, I walked for 10 minutes on the treadmill, decided that I couldn’t take it anymore and sped up the treadmill for a 9:00 pace jog.  Now, I’m not saying that I’m the brightest bulb, but it did help limber me up.  The only downside is that because my glutes were so trashed, my ass was all jiggly while I ran.  Has that ever happened to anyone else??

 

Wednesday: Today’s run was outside.  I couldn’t do another run on the hotel treadmill.  Overall it was good to get out in the fresh air.  I could start to feel myself coming back from the race and start to regain some of my running form.  I held a pretty good / relaxed pace throughout the entire run and only felt some minor discomfort in my ankle and some minor jiggles in my ass.

 

Thursday:  Ok, I didn’t do exactly what I was supposed to do with this run.  This is supposed to be a cool down week.  You know, rest my body before another 20 miler next weekend.  But, for some reason, I wanted to see if I could actually hit 8:00 pace with really tired legs.  Was I risking injury?  Yes.  Was I not letting my body rest like I should have been?  Yes.  Was I able to hold the pace for the last two miles?  Yes…Basically….sort of.  My splits were 8:31, 8:07, 8:31, 8:11, and 8:00.  With a little warm up mile and a mile with a huge hill in there, I was basically able to hold steady right where I wanted to be.  Score 1 for me.

 

On a side note, last week with my marathon I set a PR for distance in one week.  I ran a total of 44.2 miles (in 4 running periods).

Thursday Funny

So, I know that I am a day early on this, but I just HAD to share since I'm pretty busy at work today.

I LOVE Scott Adams. If he were a girl, I think that it would be a little unhealthy..... Or, is it even more unhealthy because he is a guy? Don't judge me because of my man crush.

Dear Kansas City Home

Dear house,

I will admit that I am too nostalgic of a person. I like to collect random crap because it reminds me of a particular person, place, or event. You however, are too expensive to collect so I had to let you go. It wasn’t you, it was me. I needed to take my life in a new direction. I am sure that your new owners will take good care of you. I didn’t use ALL of your space anyway. No kids. No pets. So, it is really better for the both of us.

I had a lot of good times living in Kansas City. I’ll miss living here. I owned my first home here and really took a sense of pride in having such an important responsibility. I had a blast getting you ready to move into, finishing off my basement – and even some of the little things…mowing the lawn and trimming the trees. For some reason I can’t help but feel like I am taking a step backwards in the progression of life. I am moving back into a (corporate) apartment, I am forwarding my mail to my (wives) parent’s house, and I am getting rid of my grill (nooooooooo). I suppose that I could look at this as one of those ‘one step forward, two steps back’ type of deals. Take one for the team to get ahead. Still, I can’t help but feel a bit sad to see you go.

I will admit that breaking up hasn’t been easy. Packing has been a PAIN. Luckily, my wife has been responsible for the at home logistics (packing, cleaning for showings, etc) while I have been responsible for the paperwork logistics (finalizing the offers, working with the realtor, closing off utilities, changing mailing addresses, etc).*** Still, you haven’t made it easy. It has been very stressful to try to get everything completed. It was certainly harder because I am traveling, but mostly I think that it was your fault.

However, I think that it is all for the best. I’m going to be moving to a great climate – and my new house is going to have a pool come hell or high water. (Since it is Phoenix, my money is on the hell part – not too many floods there.) We’ll meet tons of fun new, likely very tanned, people and I am sure that there will be lots of fun house projects for me to take on. If not, I guess I can always sit by the pool!

Thanks again house,
Adam

***I’m a project manager, bite me. :)

Zack Efron will always be a small Tom Hanks

Since I’ve been talking about running so much lately, I thought that I was due for another non-running bulleted post. You know how we consultants love us some bullets!

• Is it just me, or is that new Zack Efron movie, 17 Again, a TOTAL rip off of the movie Big? I swear to god, if there is a Zoltron machine somewhere in there, I’m going to scream.
• Is it bad that I sorta want to see it though? I mean, Efron is annoying, but I realllly liked the movie Big. Shit, did I just lose another man card? I don’t even care, Zack is sooo dreamy. :)
• Things on the moving front have been fast and furiously coming to a close. I’ll post more details on that later in the week, but I can’t help but admit that I’m really bummed out that I will only be spending a few more days in MY home. I’m sure that some of it is the stress of moving, but I can’t help but feel a bit depressed at it all.
• I think that I need a vacation or something. I’m going to the Caribbean in June, but am really looking forward to hanging out in Austin over memorial day. I think that I’m going to be a day late than everyone else which means that instead of going out downtown, I’ll get to hang out on Lake Travis most of the time. That is just fine with me. I’ve always been more of a water balloon fight kind of a guy than a clubin’ kind of a guy anyway.
• Ok, one running tidbit… I am used to being sore after a super long run, but I am always surprised at WHERE I am sore. This time it is in my….bedonkedonk. You know, the junk in my trunk? For those of you that are unfamiliar with the term, I have enlisted my buddy Kim Kardashian to help point out where the pain is. Kim is totally my new Paris Hilton.

4/5 Hogeye Marathon Race Report

What a race! This past weekend, I ran the Hogeye Marathon in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It was a really fun, small, well run race. There were about 130 full marathon participants not including the relay racers. I was scheduled for a 20 miler this weekend and since I want to eventually do one in all of the states, I thought that this race would be a good opportunity to knock one more out while I could still drive there.

A picture of my gear, my pace band (note the frowns), and me rocking the start with my dad's business' sweatshirt on.
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Miles 1-8

The race started off quite well. That is probably because of the MASSIVE downhill at mile two. At one point the hill was steep enough that I had to stutter step down it – I couldn’t make my gait long enough! At the 8ish mile point, the half marathoners and their crazy fast pace peeled off and the marathoners were on our own. So, I went from having a pretty fair number of people around to almost nobody…. Just like a training run! Also, just like a training run, I ate powergel every 6.5 miles and I wore my water belt. I am really glad I wore my water belt because I couldn’t figure out the spacing of the aid stations. So, all that I had to do was fill up around mile 23 and I was just fine!

Miles 8-20

These miles, like during most marathons, went off without too much to say about them. I was hitting my 3:40 splits, and actually was about 90 seconds ahead of time because of the hills on mile 2. I will say that the minimal hill work that I have done on some of my longer runs really paid off. I was able to keep pace (for the most part) up the hills and speed up a touch on the downhills.

There were 3 separate out and backs which made the course a little ‘interesting’. I’m not sure if I liked them or if I didn’t. They did let my wife see me a few times without moving where she was. She just had to park at the main point where they all met in the middle and hang tight until I was able to run past.

The last thing that was different about these miles (as well as the rest of the race really) was that they were on paved trails. It was actually a little fun. They really reminded me of a trail behind my house which probably put me a bit at ease.

A picture of me running away:


Miles 20-26
These miles went by as follows: Good, good, blah, blah, SUCK, HILLS. I am pretty sure Boston’s little wussy heartbreak hill’s got nothing on this little ditty... Meh, maybe it does - who knows





One of the smallish hills at the end of mile 26:


So, I still don’t know my official time. At the awards ceremony where I received my tote for finishing first in my age category, they said that I had 3:44:XX (I can’t remember the seconds that they said). If I had one gripe with the race it is that it wasn’t chip timed. The race was SUPER cheap at $55, so I honestly would be willing to pay an extra $10 to get a more ‘instant’ time. I’m sure that the people who had to figure out all of the times would have appreciated that as well!

Finishing it out


Receiving my tote for finishing first in my age group.

Hogeye Marathon - 3:44:XX?

I don't have any time to post a full review, but I wanted to post my time. It is somewhere around 3:44:XX. ~8:33 pace. A NEW PR!! The race wasn't chip timed, and I could have SWORE that I saw 3:43:XX on the clock when I crossed the line, but who is counting. :) Of course, I forgot to turn off my Garmin when I stopped, so it says waaay too much time.

I finished ~28 / 130 and I placed FIRST in my age category. Go me! I got a cool gym bag for my efforts.

I'll have a full review of the course, the hills, the wind, and everything else tomorrow. Happy Palm Sunday all!

Funny Friday - Overheard

My buddy Nick subscribes to the "Overheard in the Office" feed and shares the best of the best with me. So, in the spirit of funny Friday, I thought that I would share some of the best of them. (Disclaimer: Some of these are a little PG-13... But I think most of us can 'deal')


Girl: (on cell) "I just can't take any more stupid sports. It's twenty four seven with you! If ESPN is on when I get home, I'm leaving. No you shouldn't pack my things, you jerk!"
- Water Tower Place

Woman to coworker playing hangman: Your little man isn't doing so well.
Man: That's what she said!
Colorado

Pilot over intercom after rough landing: Whooaa, Nessie! (makes galloping sound) Easy, girl! (makes baaing sound) Whoops, wrong animal.
Houston, Texas

Female cube neighbor, whispering into cell: Jeff*, I woke up this morning with a naked gay man in my bed, and it wasn't you. I'm highly disturbed. Call me immediately.
Atlanta, Georgia

Four-year-old boy: Daddy! I wanna get hammered!
(mom pulls out a toy rubber hammer, sighing)
Dad, to everyone around: Shhhhh, nobody heard that! If you did, little forgetfulness fairies will fly into your mind!
Airport - Phoenix, Arizona

Guy #1: "Spring break in T minus 5. Hell yeah!"
Guy #2: "Who cares? We aren't going anywhere and we have to work."
Guy #1: "But just IMAGINE we were staring at chicks and getting laid. Makes spring break all that much better."
Guy #2: "Yeah. Because picturing Amy at the front desk naked definitely makes me want to party. I'd rather see the Bears O-line naked."
- Lincoln Park

Flight attendant: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard flight 1751 to Raleigh-Durham. My name is John and I am your head flight attendant today. I will be assisted by my lovely fiancee Sarah and my ex-wife Jill. It may be a little awkward but we hope you have a pleasant flight.
Runway Atlanta, Georgia

Peon #1: So, I finally got my new car--it's a Scion.
Peon #2: Oh yeah, dude, you like?
Peon #1: Yeah, it's sweet. It's a standard.
Peon #2: Why?
Peon #1: Well, my brother only has one arm, so this way he can't borrow my car.
West Street Boston, Massachusetts

Seven-year-old girl: Daddy, do you know what stinks?
Dad: No, what?Seven-year-old girl: Dog farts.
Dad: Let's not talk about that here.
TJ Maxx Ann Arbor, Michigan

IT manager: I wish I worked in HR, they're always either eating cake or firing people.
New York City, New York

Pod dweller #1: So, I might take tomorrow off.
Pod dweller #2: Nice, what're you gonna do?
Pod dweller #1: Nothin, going to the gym and stuff...I'll probably come in to work.
Pod dweller #2: That's the shittiest day off I ever heard.
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Little boy, grabbing his crotch and jumping up and down: Gotcha! Gotcha! Gotcha!
Target

Pilot to passengers: Everyone, please make sure your seatbelts are fastened. I'm gonna fly this plane like I stole it.
Flight from Nashville, Tennessee

Customer: Excuse me, where is your non-fiction section?
Salesgirl: What type of non-fiction are you looking for?
Customer: Harry Potter.Bookstore
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Female coworker, after cutting in line to get her lunch: What happened to "ladies first"?
Male coworker: The womens' rights movement.
Potrero Hill San Francisco, California

Week of 3/30 Runs

3/31: 5 miles, 8:15 pace
4/1: 10 miles, 8:18 pace
4/2: Rain delay. 0 miles

Tuesday: Today’s run was actually in the afternoon. I use the hotel alarm clock and unfortunately it was set to PM when it needed to be set to AM. Fortunately, I only overslept 30 minutes, but that was just enough to not get in my runs. So, in the afternoon, I started out. I had a bit of stiffness in my knee but it settled out almost immediately and I was able to get in some really good miles. I pushed the pace a bit towards the end because I had so much energy from not running much over the weekend. I probably went a BIT too fast with the Hogeye marathon coming up this weekend, but whatcha gonna do?

Wednesday: This was a great run. I think that I am safe to say that my knee is completely healed. Yay! I still have a bit of a tweak in my opposite ankle (probably due to some compensation for my knee) but nothing that has ever slowed me down. So, this run was really good. It was 65 degrees, no wind, a bit overcast – basically perfect running weather. I did a few things today that I think that I am going to incorporate going forward.

• I super hydrated before hand. Now, this did mean that I had to pee behind a strip mall (sorry random furniture store!) around mile 5.5, but it was totally worth it.
• I really focused on running faster downhill to compensate for my slower pace uphill (not sure why I haven’t been doing this before). It doesn’t make me any more tired and it enables me to grab 20 or so seconds here and there.
• I didn’t wear my headphones because of a dead battery. It really allowed me to focus on what I was doing vs bopping along singing w/ my tunes.
• I ran with some shot-blocks. While they were a pain in the ass to eat while gasping for air, I think that overall they really helped my energy levels.

This is basically the pace that I want to run the Hogeye marathon this weekend. A bit slower than full MP, but still faster than my long run pace. If it is as nice as it was today, I know that I could have held it for 15 miles, probably through 18. Unfortunately, I can’t predict much further out than that. Fingers crossed that it goes well!

Thursday: Stupid rain didn’t let me run today (and I didn’t want to risk tweaking anything on the busted up hotel treadmill). I was only going to do 2 miles anyway, so no huge loss here.

Sham-wo…uhoh

As if he wasn’t creepy enough, last night I heard that Vince Offer, the Sham-wow guy, was picked up for beating the shit out of a prostitute. So the story goes, he was receiving services from the lady of the night when she bit his tongue and wouldn’t let go. Ha! Let’s be honest…. Haven’t we ALL wanted to bite this guys tongue at one point or another? I can only assume my buddy Vince was going at it, wearing nothing but his Britney Spears style microphone, trying to get the hooker to upgrade from 4 large Shamwows to 8 large Shamwows with 4 small Shamwows thrown in for free – perfect for the bathroom or smaller messes!

What has this world come to when someone who is as much of a stud muffin as Vince needs to pay for some genital to genital contact? I would have thought that there would have been loads of women (and some guys) throwing themselves at him during his trade show style show. “Oh my goshhhh. Your felt cloth can soak up 2L of coke!? Do me now, Shamwow!!”

Speaking of bad commercials, what is up with Gieco lately? I used to love the caveman series of commercials. For that matter, the little lizard guy wasn’t that bad either – I liked his accent.

But WTF is the deal with this money making googly eyes at me? The money I could be saving with Gieco? I’m no marketing expert, but I imagine that it was getting late and the commercial writters didn’t have any good ideas. So, they dug into the marketing goody bag, found some googly eyes, slapped them on some money and called it good. Actually, now that I think about it I think I should have been in marketing. I could come up with a million shitty ideas like that a week! I’d be a millionaire!