Jballs

Fort Worth Public Library

2010-01-05T08:36:00.003-06:00

So I am big library fan. It is not unusual for me to go online and reserve 5-8 things at a time to pick up a few days later. It is usually a mix of audio books, books, and DVD's.

Recently I had spotted a lot of blog traffic about the book "Unclutter Your Life In One Week" by Erin Dolan. I really wasn't interested enough to buy the book, but I did want to read it so off to the library website I went. Unfortunately they didn't have it. Well I figured since it was #1 on a lot of Amazon.com lists I couldn't be the only one interested. I knew you could suggest books for the library to buy so I filled out that simple form and 2 days later I get an email saying they had ordered 10 copies. Sweet!

Bandera Almost Here!

2010-01-03T20:39:00.002-06:00

Well Bandera is six days from today and the weather is looking frigid. Low temps are predicted to be in the teens when I am in the middle of my second loop so this should be interesting. I am scrambling to find some good winter clothing since my usual method to deal with the cold is to just not run.

I am also feeling more fatigued and sore after my runs lately so that is definitely not a good sign. I am just going to take it easy this week and grunt my way through this race. I am sure it will be a blog worthy experience.

Bandera

2009-12-08T09:02:00.002-06:00

I have been totally neglecting my workout duties the past 5 months and find myself in less than ideal shape. My solution, signing up for an ultramarathon that is 31 miles longer than I have ever run before. My time to train, 3 weeks.

This is not going to be pretty.

El Scorcho Tres Recap

2009-07-20T21:55:00.004-05:00

For those of you who don't know, my buddy Ryan and I decided to run 30 miles for his 30th birthday. Well that was three years ago and now it has turned in to an annual Ultramarathon with over 500 people running it this year. We are proud of the great event Scorcho has become, and man it can be a lot of fun and work all at the same time.

This recap is going to be short, basically just a weekend timeline. Ryan usually does a great all out recap on his blog so I may just leave that up to him.

10am- Toilets delivered to the park. Toilets were the wrong kind, without the locking mechanism, but didn't have much choice in refusing them at the time.

11am- Run over to Fort Worth Running Company to pick up some supplies. Got an awesome new headlamp for the race.

1pm- Head over to Costco to pick up food, water, extra coolers, and various other race goods. It is amazing how much money you can spend when you are taking care of 500+ people.

4pm- Make sure I have everything gathered up and in the car ready to go.

6pm- Had to stop by work and pick up all the radios. It takes a lot of wall plugs to charge 16 radios.

8pm- Start unloading. Gotta get aid stations, packet pick-up, PA systems, parking area, and a ton of other things set up and ready to go. Jmoney had already set up most of the course during the day so that was a huge help.

10pm- Volunteers and runners start to arrive. GandaMan and Six Pack make a run through the course to check on everything. Still running around trying to get everything set up.

11pm- Last minute details, dealing with the sheer number of people, almost showtime

12:01am- Race starts, I get to lead everyone off (on bike of course), dropping glowsticks while I pedal to give runners a better visual guide of the route (new idea this year that everyone seemed to appreciate)

12:15am- Aid stations are getting crushed but volunteers are handling it well

1am- Things are starting to settle down, runners going through water and cups like crazy

2am- Some of the 25k speed demons are finishing, everyone is finding their rhythm, have to make a run to CVS for hand wipes for the Aid Station Volunteers

3am- Keith Pierce finishes the 50k in 3:08 (new course record), most of the 25kers are starting to trickle in. We are starting to run low on cups so we make a Wal-Mart run

4am- Thing are starting to get quiet, mainly just 50k runners left.

6am- Sunlight starts to break and we do our best to cleanup as much as we can, enjoying cheering on those runners still out on the course, between the volunteers and runners it is just a great group to be around

7am- Cleanup begins hard and heavy, unfortunately it is mainly just the race directors and a select other few. The volunteers had been with us all night and done an awesome job so you they headed home. Hopefully next year we can have some extra help with cleanup after the race.

9am- Finish up at the park and proceed to go and drop of supplies and equipment.

10am- Dirty, Sweaty, and Stinky, but screw it we are going to Ol' South Pancake House to eat some breakfast.

Personal Timeline after 10am

11am- Drive back home and get ready to drive the wifearoo (who surprised me by showing up at El Scorcho), back to Austin.

11:30am- quick shower and on the road headed south on I-35

2:30pm- In Austin taking care of errands

4:30pm- Find myself enjoying life floating around in Lake Travis with a beer and some great friends.

12:30am- Finally pass out back in Austin at Dori's apartment. First time I slept since the start of El Scorcho preparations.

One unforgettable weekend!!!!!!!!

AC Outage Culprit

2009-07-09T13:14:00.001-05:00

So my air conditioning atthe house went out yesterday. Turns out this
little wire was the culprit.

New York Part 2-Shake Shack

2009-04-13T20:04:00.000-05:00

These are all pictures from the famous Shake Shack in New York. This place is crazy busy at lunch, but we managed to catch it when it was relatively slow. It really seems like a New York version of In-N-Out which means that it is really good. As you can see I really enjoyed shake. The burgers and fries were awesome too.

Interesting Costco Item

2009-04-13T09:59:00.003-05:00

This made me do a double take on Costco.com today. Very interesting.....

If things ever got that bad I don't know if I would be that worried about eating.

Great Time of Year!

2009-03-13T21:50:00.002-05:00

For those of you who don't know this Sunday is "Selection Sunday" for the NCAA tournament. It is the best time of year to be a college basketball fan. I am looking forward to filling out my brackets next week.

Also, I am heading to New York for a few days of RR tomorrow. Should be fun. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and my plane will get out of here on time.

Upcoming Vacation

2009-03-09T10:21:00.002-05:00

So I am heading for New York, NY this weekend and hope to get a run in around Central Park. My only experience with New York City was a brief four hour period when a couple of buddies and I passed through on a 22 state road trip back in 2004. I have entered the lottery for the NYC Marathon a few times, but have yet to make the cut. Looks like it is going to be about 40 degrees colder than the weather here in Texas so my running tights will be making the trip with me.

Training run.

2009-03-08T19:16:00.001-05:00

So this is another little photo from out on the trails in Fort Worth.
This photo was taken just south of Overton Park back a few weeks ago.
It is actually right off the Cowtown Marathon path.

Organic???

2009-03-08T19:13:00.001-05:00

So we bought strawberries from wall mart today vs. The usual organic
kind we get from target or central market.

Something tells me this little monster is genetically modified.

Training run.

2009-03-07T23:32:00.001-06:00

This is a picture I snapped during a recent training run. I have been
using this river crossing a lot as of late. FYI it is right next to
colonial country club for all of you familar with the trails.

Cake!!!

2009-03-07T23:01:00.002-06:00

My fantastic birthday cake from work!! I was quite impressed. Probably the best birthday cake i have had since grade school.

Birthday breakfast

2009-03-06T16:24:00.000-06:00

So my awesome co-workers threw me a great birthday breakfast.

Good morning.

2009-02-28T06:22:00.001-06:00

Who wouldn't want to go running this morning!?

Crossfit

2009-02-04T11:58:00.002-06:00

So I have been playing around with this workout program called Crossfit. It is pretty well known now and gaining in popularity daily. My problem with it was I really didn' always know how to do all of the components of the workouts that they post on the website and my gym wasn't really set up for it. Well I finally decided to offically join GSX Athletics and their Crossfit group. Yesterday was my first workout and.......

I am torn up today.

The workout looked innocent enough. Do 150 Kettle Bell Swings and do 10 Burpees every time you had to stop or pause. I hadn't ever done that many Kettle Bell Swings before so I was unsure of how it would go. Well let's just say that about Kettle Bell Swing #70 I knew I was in trouble. 4 sets of Burpees later and another 80 Kettle Bell Swings and I was dead to the world.

My group partners looked much better than I did after the workout and I am not even sure I did all 150. I know I came close, but I started to lose count toward the end when it got really tough. I am going to have to work on that because I don't want to cheat myself.

By the way the girls in the group did the same weight I did and smoked me.

Overall it was a fun experience and I can't wait to to get back for my next class. The camaraderie in doing the workouts in a group is awesome.

Next time I will try to grab some pictures. I was too busy trying to catch my breath to worry about it this time.

Bandera Trail Run 50k

2009-01-12T14:16:00.000-06:00

Since I can only post one photo at a time from my iPhone here is the
one I chose. It best summarizes the Bandera experience.

Quick Post About Bandera

2009-01-12T14:08:00.002-06:00

This is from an email I sent earlier to Ganda Man (Whom I paced for the last 50k of Bandera). I will post pictures and more info later, but here you go for now.

"I never thought I would finish up a 50k in the dark, in cold weather, with insane wind, with rocks sliding out from under my feet, on steep inclines and declines and yet still feel like a pansy because I was finishing with all of the 100k runners who looked like they had been mugged and beaten after having done the whole damn thing twice."

Energy Fitness Athletes

2008-12-18T15:15:00.002-06:00

During my workout today I ran into a few regulars at the gym Trip Littleton and Patrick Martin. I see these guys in the gym all the time so no news there. Well I get back to my office and find my monthly Energy Fitness info email. It turns out that Trip recently finished the Ford Ironman in an amazing 10:43:38 and Patrick smoked the marathon course at White Rock this past weekend to finish in 3:14 which qualifies him for Boston. Amazing performances from both of these guys.

It seems I am surrounded by good athletes which is a great motivator to always try and improve so I can compete.

I am pacing Gandaman for the last 50k of Bandera so hopefully that goes well and afterwards I can start training to take some time off of my marathon pace.

El Scorcho Dos Lights

2008-11-02T21:38:00.003-06:00

I was thinking back today to El Scorcho Dos and what a crazy day we had. Running a night race brings a whole new set of challenges on top of the normal things required for daytime runs. One item in particular that tends to be a recurring issue is the lighting situation in Trinity Park. No other event in the park has the light requirements of El Scorcho so it is tough to get the city electricians that when we say that we need "All" the lights on in the park we are not over exaggerating.

This year Gandaman and myself did an inspection run the night before the race to check on the course and found that 90% of the lights in the main area were not on. I quickly hopped on the phone to Mike, the supervisor in charge of Trinity Park who told me the electrician had already been out and turned on all the lights that he could. Mike assured me he would look into more and get back to me if there was anything he could do.

To make a long story short Mike ended up trying to contact the electrician with no luck so he drove all the way in from Burleson to check on the situation on his day off. After being unable to get into the electrical box due to a recent key change Mike and Jim from the Parks Department literally took a blowtorch to the lock. The lock gave up the ghost real quick with that kind of effort and lo and behold the lights were never turned on.

Those of you at El Scorcho know that some of the more strategic lights never came on, but without the last minute efforts of Mike and Jim we would not gotten we would have had only a couple of lights at the Gazebo area.

So what does this mean for next year? Well looks like Ganda and I get to spend the Friday before El Scorcorcho showing the course to the electrician and fielding the inevitable questions of what would possess anyone to come out and run an 25k/50k in the middle of the night. Should be fun!

El Scorcho Report

2008-08-28T21:16:00.002-05:00

It has been about a month since El Scorcho and looking back it seems that the race was a big success in the eyes of the participants who have written reviews and given us verbal feedback. It is always great to hear that people enjoyed the race and are looking forward to next year. It takes a lot of hard work and hours and hours of meeting to put this race together and usually a lot of last minute details to be worked out.

I won't go into details about the race since my fellow race director Ryan Valdez has already done a great job at that in a blog post last month. Ryan is a great writer which serves him well in his profession and also allows him to a great job writing most of the information that you read on the website.

Instead I am going to write to thank and highlight some of the people who made the race possible and let you guys in on some of the crazy last days before El Scorcho Dos. On second thought I think I will stretch this over several blog posts since this is already turning into a lengthy one.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks and you can get an insiders look at how this year's El Scorcho came together and some of the more "risky" moments that made us sweat a little.

El Scorcho Finally

2008-07-20T16:35:00.002-05:00

After 400 runners, 500 spectators, 200 burritos, over 100 pounds of pasta, 80 degree weather, 12 hours in the park preparing the course, 1000's of gallons of water, hundreds of Nuun caplets, oppressive humidity, a hike from the parking lot to the race start, tons of incredible volunteers, gallons of coffee, some great off duty police officers, great medical staff, and the parks department going above and beyond...........El Scorcho Dos is done!! I will write a more detailed summary once I recover from being up and running around Trinity Park for the past 36 hours. Let's just say El Scorcho Dos was a great time!

El Scorcho approaching

2008-07-07T22:45:00.002-05:00

So only 13 days until El Scorcho. This is going to be a crazy few weeks. We are as prepared as we can be, but there are always a ton of little things that have to get done.

Anyone know of a good place to find some glow in the dark spray paint? I figure it would be fun to have the course marked that way.

Garage Cleanup

2008-07-06T20:11:00.002-05:00

So today I finally had the opportunity to tackle the mess that my garage is. When we moved in to the house I found that the garage was pretty much untouched from the past few owners of the house. They guy we bought it from said he didn't really touch it other than to park the lawnmower in there and I told him to leave it alone in case there was anything useful in there.

Six hours later and I am almost done. I just have to go through and finish cleaning up after the mice who were obviously previous tenants of the garage. Here is a short list of some of the items I found.

About 40 cans of different color paints. No joke this house must be like a rainbow underneath the paint coat that is currently showing.
A computer racing wheel from 1995
Several Marilyn Monroe Books
A set of Law Directories for all 50 states from 1994
About 8 paint roller and 15 paint brushes
An old typewriter
14 bags of assorted fertilizer, grass seed, mulch, and dirt

I kept a lot of the stuff that is useful, but had to toss out a ton of junk. Now I just have to figure out how I am going to get a truck to haul all of this stuff away.

The Roof is on Fire!!

2008-07-01T23:29:00.004-05:00

Today is the last day I will have to get things done around the house for awhile. D's Dad and his family of six are coming in from Louisiana to pay us a visit for about three days. Should be a tiring and fun three days.

On another note, we had a few hours of downtime at work today when the computer room fire alarm went haywire. I took the time to go and workout with GandaMan after which we had lunch at his house. A pretty relaxing and enjoyable afternoon. Food and working out, two of my favorite things!

Blackberry Pearl

2008-06-27T22:13:00.002-05:00

Back in April I switched from the Palm Treo 650 to the Blackberry Pearl. My main reason for this was comfort while I am running. The Treo felt like a brick in my belt pack so oftentimes I would switch the SIM card to an old Motorola Razr anytime I was doing serious mileage (16+ miles).

After seeing a great deal for the Pearl (I actually got $100 out of the deal) on Amazon.com I made the change and ordered the phone online.

So far the phone is awesome for my running. I fit it into my pocket and hardly even notice it is there. The call quality is great and I like the easy to use Standby button which helps to keep the phone from getting turned on accidentally when I am running. It can also be set loud enough for me to hear under pretty much any conditions.

The only drawbacks are that it doesn't display PDF's as well as my Palm did. In fact I have yet to find a free program that offers this functionality. Secondly I wish it had a better built in Media Device so I could do away with my separate MP3 player altogether. I guess that is what the i phone does, but how many people do you see running with that thing. While the Iphone is amazingly small for everything it does, it is still almost double the size of the Pearl.

If you are looking for a smartphone to easily carry with you on long runs then the Blackberry Pearl is a good option. They have even upgraded the model line since I purchased and now offer GPS in a lot of the models. Maybe that will allow some people to leave the Garmin 405 at home.

Attack!?

2008-04-14T22:47:00.003-05:00

Wow, it looks like Ganda Man is smarting off about my running regime. Apparently I don't have as much free time to go out and run as many official ultras as he does. Oh well, I got nothing to prove to him. I know I can go out and run an ultra right now if I wanted to. You up still Ganda Man? You want to go crank out a quick 31 miles before work tomorrow? Call me.

Snow???

2008-04-14T21:59:00.003-05:00

I forgot to mention what happened on my way back to the Airport from Farmington. We were about 15 minutes into our 3 hour trip when suddenly the temperature started dropping about 5 degrees a minute. We ended up dropping from 67 degrees to 33 degrees in a matter of minutes. Kinda of interesting, but to top it off I see some dense fog up ahead, but when I get to it I see it is actually some super heavy snowfall.

I pulled over and grabbed a quick picture on my phone:

Farmington, NM

2008-04-14T21:31:00.002-05:00

So I spent the good part of last week in Farmington, NM on a work trip. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it turns out Farmington is a pretty cool town. It is only 45 minutes from Durango, CO and a 3 hour drive from Albuquerque.

The best part of the trip was finding some great hiking and running trails directly behind my hotel along the San Juan River. What these trails lacked in distance (only about 6 miles) they made up for in quality. Wish I would have taken some pictures on the blackberry, but I was to into the moment to think about that.

I managed to get 14 miles in on Tuesday by doing a couple of loops on the trails and then following an old back road for a few miles. Altogether I ended up with 23 miles for the three days I was there. I did a 18 mile run on Saturday to finish up the week with 49 miles.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I was one of the lucky passengers to get stranded on American Airlines. Luckily Southwest Airlines has a big presence in Albuquerque and was able to me and all my fellow American Airlines customers.

Office Move

2008-03-26T08:32:00.003-05:00

Well it finally happened. Ever since I joined Company X I knew my office space was temporary. My office was located on a floor that was due to be demolished and renovated just like all the floors below it had been. Every day I could hear and feel the hammers and drills getting closer and closer. It was getting so bad that the constructions crew was having to come up to our office and drill holes in the floor in order to be able to finish out the spaces below.

This past Monday our group moved into our new offices a few floors below the old space. I can still hear the drills and hammers, but they are headed up away from me instead of coming for me. The view is not quite as nice as the old office, but the office itself is a lot nicer. I have way to much empty wall space now so I think I will bring all of my old marathon medals up here and decorate the wall. Right now they are just hanging on a clothes hanger in my closet so this is probably a good place to store them.

Cowtown Casualty

2008-02-27T21:56:00.002-06:00

You might be wondering why I haven't updated the blog with any word about the Cowtown Ultramarathon. Well that is because I didn't get to run it. The night before the big race I gouged my hell while playing around with my little brother. I instantly knew I was in trouble, but was hoping that it would heal enough over night to allow me to run.

Well when I woke up Saturday morning and tried to put some pressure on the heel it instantly started to bleed. Yes, Curt Schilling had a legendary performance in the World Series where his foot bled through his sock and shoe. The thing is I don't get paid to run (quite the opposite actually) and Curt didn't have to run 31 miles with his jacked up foot.

So I spent the day watching the marathon as a spectator and running some errands around town. I took a picture of the injury, but for the sake of taste I will leave it off the blog. I am afraid some of my readers may have queasy stomachs.

Cowtown Coming Up

2008-02-21T14:28:00.002-06:00

The Cowtown Ultra is in a couple of days. I haven't trained much at all since White Rock so the 1/2 marathon would probably be a better idea for me. The problem is I would regret not doing the Ultra.

On top of the running the race I think I will add some distance by running to and from the start instead of driving. Hopefully no one who reads this blog will actually know the distance from my house to the race start.

Crossfit Workouts

2007-12-21T21:32:00.000-06:00

I am currently in the process of totally revamping my gym workouts by adopting the Crossfit workout strategy. If you haven't heard about Crossfit then you should really research it. I first came across it in an old Men's Journal from 2006. The workouts intrigued me because it promised great results in a short period of time. I thought yeah right every magazine makes these outrageous claims for every article which ultimately turns out to be quite gimmicky.

The reason Crossfit can actual follow through on these claims can be summed up in one word.....Intense!! If you do this workout at the tempo and effort it is intended then you will get the workout of your life. Check out this Youtube video and also this direct link to a video.

I did a really hard Crossfit workout the other day before heading to the office and almost threw up my protein shake. It was awesome. It was the normal after workout high times 10!! I felt great all day and I was sore all over the next day.

You will quickly notice how you stand out from all of the other people at the gym who are worried about looking pretty while they workout. You will get an endless number of incredulous looks and stares as you quickly rotate between your exercises. Most people just can't handle this level of intensity.

The thing I have to be careful about is balancing Crossfit with my long distance running because this workout can really wipe you out. I have to be sure that I give my body enough time to build back up between all of these challenges I am throwing at it.

Running Goal

2007-12-20T12:13:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago I finished up what is so far my craziest running streak. I ran the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC the last Sunday in October, followed it up with the Ultracentric 6 hr race in middle of November, and then completed White Rock Marathon in Dallas in early December.

Now I am left with the decision of how to proceed from here. Do I go for distance or do I go for speed. Going for distance would mean training for a 50 miler sometime later this year while going for speed would mean shooting for a 3 1/2 hr marathon or faster.

In the meantime I have the Austin Marathon and Cowtown Ultra on my running calendar. These are on back to back weekends in February. The only problem I have is the entry fee for Austin which is $110. This is pretty steep compared to most of the local marathons in Texas. Considering I can and sometimes will run almost an entire marathon during a training run, it makes it hard to fork over $110 for the privilege of doing it in Austin. I can do the Cowtown Ultra for just $85. What a deal.

It is funny how when marathons were a new thing for me I really wouldn't pay attention to the price. I was too caught up in wondering whether I could finish, or about the aid stations, or how course conditions would affect me. Now I can just grab a hydration pack or fuel belt and go knock out 26 miles in pretty much any type of weather conditions on any day.

Currently I am leaning toward a focus on speed since I am still young and realize that as I age my speed will probably slow down while my endurance will pick up. If I could run like Scott Jurek or David Goggins it would take care of my problems since those guys run a 100+ miles at my 10k my pace.

Solo Night

2007-06-02T22:25:00.000-05:00

As I type this the dog and I are chilling in bed. My WW (Wonderful Wife) is in Houston tonight shooting a wedding. Unfortunately military drill today prevented me from joining her. Bedtime is relatively early tonight because of a scheduled run with Ganda at 6:30am in the morning. I am hoping to get in around 15 miles, but we will see what happens.

Burrito Run

2007-05-18T14:26:00.000-05:00

My morning run began and ended with a stop at the Tres Jose's Breakfast Burrito Express. If you haven't tried these things then you don't know what you are missing. The breakfast burritos are awesome and only $1 each. I am sure they are extremely unhealthy, but a lot of the reason I work out is so that I can eat and not feel guilty.

The reason I began my run at the Burrito Express was the fact that they usually sell out early. So I ran up to the guy, handed over my $3 (the wife wanted one), and told him to hold them until I got done with my run. Three miles later I finish my run at the burrito stand, retrieve my workout reward, and head home to enjoy my breakfast. All mornings should be that good.

Treadmill Test

2007-01-14T21:37:00.000-06:00

Well the weather around DFW this weekend is pretty lousy. It has been drizzling/raining off and on for the past two days with temperatures flirting with the freezing mark. The wind is not bad, but the cold and damp don't mix well when you are training for the Cowtown Marathon coming up next month. Ryan and I had a 14.5 mile training run planned for Saturday morning, but plans quickly changed when I got soaked just walking to my car that morning. I convinced him that we should just do some mileage on the treadmill and save ourselves the misery of getting soaked the first mile of our run and then being miserable the rest of the time.

Well the treadmill was about what we expected, boring. It just doesn't feel the same when you are running and not making any forward progress at all. One of the best things about running is the little adventure you have each run. I love to just take out of the door and see where things lead me. You never know what you might find or where you might end up. A lot of the times I will end up running farther than anticipated because I just want to keep going and see what is around the corner.

The treadmill while great for a short little workout is quite monotonous for those of us who run long distances. I put around 11 miles on the treadmill on Saturday and another 5 today, but I am hoping the weather clears up and I can hit the roads again on Monday.

Lesson Learned

2007-01-10T08:20:00.001-06:00

So today I learned a lesson in record keeping. Normally I am pretty good about keeping track of receipts and documents, but lately I have been slacking off. Maybe it has something to do with the 100+ things I have going on or maybe I just haven’t made it a high enough priority. Either way there is a huge stack of documents that I have to go through and organize soon before I get caught unprepared again. Ok, here is the story

I sold my textbooks from last semester on Amazon Marketplace this year. Overall it was a great experience and I sold all of the books within four days. When mailing the books I always buy the insurance even though I think it is overpriced. I really didn’t feel like taking the hit if the books never arrived. Well guess what. I get an email from a guy today claiming he never got his book that I mailed on December 10. First of all I don’t believe that the guy never received the book. As bad as the post office is, they usually get the packages to their destination at some point or another. The real problem though lies in the fact that I can’t locate my insurance receipt from the post office, and the postal system is so archaic that you are SOL if you lose the piece of paper. There is no such thing as looking it up electronically.

So it looks like I will be taking a $50 hit just because of some lousy record management on my part. While this does suck, it is at least motivating me to take better care of everything in the future. Lesson learned.

Final Test Schedule From Hell.

2006-12-16T22:06:00.000-06:00

So around the middle of October I check the final exam schedule to see what my last week of school is going to look like since all of my professor's stated that the final is mandatory. I am taking 6 classes so that meant 6 tests. No big deal I thought until I realized that all 6 of them were in a 24 hr time period. One on Monday night and five on Tuesday.

I knew that every University has a policy that allows you to reschedule your tests if you have so many within in a certain time period. So I go and look online and can't find anything. I call the department office, they can't find it. They refer me to the business school office, they can't find it either. Next is the student services office.................! I end up talking to the President's office who took my name and number and told me they would call me back. About an hour later I get a phone call from the Senior Provost for Academic Affairs. The conversation as I remember it goes like this.

Me-Hello
Provost- Hello this is Dr. so and so. Sorry.
Me- For what?
Provost- It appears we don't have a policy limiting how many finals you can take in a day.
Me- Your kidding
Provost- We thought we had one, but apparently we never "Put it on the books".
Me- Then I am supposed to do what?
Provost- Don't worry we will take care of it for next year.
Me- How does that help me this year.?
Provost- Uh......it doesn't. Try asking your professor's to let you switch
Me- I already tried that. I wouldn't be calling you if I had worked it out.
Provost- Then good luck!
Me- Wow

Apparently I attend the only University in the state that will allow you to be schedule for 6 tests in 24 hrs that each count for at least 40% of you overall grade. Hey at least I got a policy change out of the deal. Maybe I should cut out that section of the 2007-2008 catalog and put it next to my diploma.

White Rock Surprise!

2006-12-12T19:00:00.000-06:00

So in my last post I stated that I would not be able to attend the White Rock Marathon this year. Well things can change quickly. On Saturday the day before the race Dori calls around 2pm and informs me that the WONDERFUL bride had chosen not to require me until around 3pm on Sunday. That meant I had all morning to run the race!

The only problem was that I had not gotten my bib number because I figured I wouldn't need it. I had to work until 7pm that night so I could not make the 6pm cutoff time. Well my awesome Dad drove out to Dallas and got it for me. FYI I have a great family.

The morning of the race GandaMan and Nell rode with me out to the race so it was an enjoyable ride plus we got a great parking spot thanks to my tiny car. I was so excited to be at the marathon because I really didn't think I was going to be able to participate. Nell stuck with GandaMan and myself until about mile 6 when she had to duck into the relay exchange zone to pass of the baton to Donaldo, GandaMan's Dad who was the next person in her relay team.

GandaMan and I had an understanding that neither one of us would feel an obligation to stay with the other. That being said, neither one of us really pulled away from the other for most of the race. We train together so we naturally run at about the same pace. Around mile 8 we started to enter the White Rock Lake area. This is the longest part of the course where you are basically running around the lake for about 10 miles. The great part about this is that there isn't very much traffic. The bad part is that the lake can get a little old after about 5 miles.

We made it around the lake feeling pretty good. GandaMan had just finished running a sub 4hr marathon at Marine Core about a month ago so he was still in great shape. He had flamed out at White Rock the year earlier around mile 17 so he enjoyed flying by the 17 mark still feeling great. I on the other hand had fizzled around mile 14 of the White Rock the year prior and ran a 5hr+ time. Needless to say I was just happy when I hit mile 14 with no pain or major fatigue.

I have started to figure out something about my body on these long runs and marathons. I don't like gel shots or sugary sports drinks after a certain point. It seems as though my body can only take the sugary intake for so long before it begins to tire of it and I actually begin to feel sick at the though of taking another one. Well this happened to me around mile 16 of the race and by mile 21 I was beginning to feel the consequences. I was afraid if I actually had a gel or more than a sip of Gatorade that I would throw up and really lose all my "fuel".

To make a long story short, I told GandaMan goodbye around mile 22 and watched him dash of for the finish for what would be his new PR. I then reduced my pace to stave off any cramps that might cause me to miss my goal of 4:15. Miles 22-25 were really slow, probably around 13-15 minutes each. I hit mile 25 at around 3:57 and realized I better pick up the pace to give myself some breathing room in case my watch was off from chip time. I ended up cruising across the finish line at 4:05:12. Well below my goal of 4:15 and light years ahead of last year's time of 5:05:53. Wow if I keep that up then I should run a 3:05 next year and qualify for Boston..........yea right!

At the end I caught up with GandaMan who looked incredible. The guy acted like he was ready to run another marathon. I on the other hand was suffering because of my lack of calories. My brother has diabetes so over the years I have spent many days checking my blood sugar with him. If I had checked it at that moment it probably would have been below 25. For those of you who don't know, that is incredibly low and actually borderline dangerous. I really didn't care at the moment though because I was just glad to be done and pleased with my results. Nell gave me a yogurt smoothie which tided me over until we stopped and got Braums on the way home. I was on a time crunch because I had to be at the chapel by 3 to shoot the wedding with Dori. For the sake of time I decided to eat lunch while I was taking my post race bath. As strange as it may be, that was a great experience. Feeding my completely empty stomach while relaxing my overworked muscles.......I can't wait till Cowtown so I can repeat the experience. Maybe I should find a hot tub.

FYI: My goal at Cowtown is going to be sub a 4hr.

White Rock Bummer

2006-12-08T10:39:00.000-06:00

So I have been training for the White Rock Marathon for about 5 months now. The race is this Sunday and guess what....... I won't be running. My fiancee and I are photographers and there was a little miscommunicationbetween us,probably mostly on my part. We have a wedding scheduled for that day at 11:00, and unless I can run a 2:30 hr marathon I won't be able to "Run The Rock". Considering my personal best has barely been under 5hrs, I don't think I am going to be able to run that fast. So now the goal turns to the Mardi Gras Marathon or Cowtown Marathon. I am hoping for Mardi, but if things don't work out the Cowtown is an option.

James Kim

2006-12-08T10:24:00.000-06:00

My thoughts and prayers go out to the family of James Kim. His tragic death trying to save his family has had a surprising influence on me. Normally you hear about a story like this and by the time 24 hrs has passed it is already forgotten and old news. Strangely enough I personally felt a connection to the man that only the Internet can bring. These "Internet Stars" or personalities are only a click away everyday. For those "Tech Geeks" like myself, we generally check certain websites daily. One of my favorite websites is cnet.com where James Kim was a senior editor. I check this website daily for the latest reviews and technology news, and that is where I first read about his disappearance almost 2 weeks ago. Daily I have watched this guy through online videos, read his work, and even emailed him on occasion for. To think that he passed away in frigid weather in the Oregon woods searching for help for his family really strikes a cord with me and makes me grateful for everything that I have.

Here is to life and the memory of James Kim....................................................

2006-12-04T20:15:00.000-06:00

I am an avid reader of cnet.com, and have been following the recent disappearance of their Senior Editor James Kim and his family. Apparently he and his family were driving home from Thanksgiving vacation and disappeared in Oregon. A few hours ago they found his family stranded in the Oregon woods, but James left a few days ago to go and try to find help. The search continues tonight and throughout tomorrow in search of him. No word yet on how the family ended up so extremely lost.

Cajun Vacation

2006-11-26T20:16:00.000-06:00

So to recap the Thanksgiving vacation.

Dori and I had fun in Louisiana even though we didn’t want to leave Fort Worth because we have a ton of work to catch up on. We mostly hung out with Dori’s Dad and her extended family. It was crazy having that many people over for Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving I helped out around the house and around the 20 acres of land they own about 3 miles from the house. Mr. Boone bought the land a year ago and has completely transformed it. The place is pretty incredible when you consider that less than a year ago it was covered with trees and 8 ft. tall grass. He cleared the land, leveled it off, installed a huge barn, fenced the entire thing with electric fence, and is just yesterday finished up a 1 acre pond. He has a little farm going on out there complete with goats, chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks, horses, donkeys, cows…….well you get the point.

In the course of the week I visited and passed through several interesting places. It seems towns in Louisiana are very concerned with having a distinct city.....I mean corp identity. For the people from the other 49 states, Louisiana calls counties parishes and doesn't have city limits, but instead has "Corp" limit. Some of the more interesting cities I visited where Jennings, "The Cradle of Louisiana Oil", Rayne"The Frog Capital of the World", Crowley "The Rice Capital of America", and Gueydan "The Duck Capital of America".

All in all a great time even though I found running tough down around Lafayette, La. The weather is fine, but there wasn't as much sidewalk coverage as in DFW. The area is less populated so speed limits are not really enforced. It was disconcerting to be buzzed by cars going 70 mph on some backroad near the Boone house. I restricted my mileage because of fear for my life on the local roads. No shoulder, plus no sidewalk, plus no speed limits, is a little to risky for even me. I will have to make up some mileage this week back at home.

Black Friday

2006-11-26T20:13:00.000-06:00

Ok, here comes a long blog update.

The day after Thanksgiving started off the same way it did last year, with a crazy Black Friday experience. Dori has decided that she wanted a new MP3 player for Christmas. After a lot of research and convincing by me that the Ipod is overpriced and restrictive she decided to go with the Creative Zen Micro Photo. It was on sale at Circuit City for $129.

So we woke up and left Dori’s Dad’s house at 2:30 a.m. and got to the store about 3. By the time we arrived the parking lot was filling up and we found ourselves about 90^th in line. We weren’t really worried about being so far back because the first 100 or so people are always there to get big ticket items like computers and Televisions. The problem is that the stores usually only have at most 15 of each item which are snapped up by the first 50 or so people in line.

By the time the doors opened at 5 the line had swelled to around 400 people. Everyone rushed in and quickly clogged up the computer and TV sections, but the MP3 player section was relatively quiet. After grabbing the player Dori and I ran around the store and picked up some great deals on work related items. By this time all of the line was starting to empty into the store so it was becoming crazy. By the time we finished and hopped in line to check out I was having to hold the shopping basket over my head to maneuver through the crowd. All in all we spent a ton of money at the store, but after we send in the 30+ rebates that we have to file it will be chump change. It took the receipt printer 5 minutes just to print out all of the rebate slips we will need.

After the store we got back to the house around 7 a.m. and went back to sleep for a little bit before the rest of Dori’s family woke up.

2006-11-24T20:37:00.000-06:00

Well Dori and I arrived in Lafayette, LA for Thanksgiving. We got here Wednesday evening after about a 6hr drive. Dori's brother rode with us, but he slept the entire time except for the 15 minutes when we ate or stopped for the bathroom. The impressive part was that he went to bed relatively early that night. Oh, to be a teenager again.

We had 80+ people over at Dori's Dad's house yesterday for Turkey Day. Quite a lot of people, but we started cooking at 11:00 the night before so we had enough food for everyone. Quite an experience cooking for 12 hours straight. This is hands down the largest Thanksgiving get together I have ever been too. At my house we usually have about 25 people at most. I guess this is my welcome to Cajun Country.

Today started off with a 2:00 am trip to Circuit City for the Black Friday deals, but I will have to comment on this and the rest of the day tomorrow. Later.

Back to the Blog.

2006-11-21T09:20:00.000-06:00

Well, I am going to start of this blog again and I have committed to staying current with it so here goes.

Dori and I just got back from a wonderful trip to San Diego. We stayed with my 91yr old Great Grandfather who is still going strong out on the West Coast. It must be the weather and the Italian bloodline that keep him running around. I am counting on having the same longevity. We left Friday morning at 9:00 am and landed in San Diego at 10:00 am. The 2 hr time difference causes the flying time to only have a 1hr impact on my day although it wipes out the day when we are flying back to Texas.

During the weekend we caught up with Grandpa, visited the beach a couple of times, I ran 12 miles on Coronado Island while Dori followed on a bike, visited the Tide Pools at Cabrillo National Monument, and ate more in 3 days than we have in the past week combined. Italians have this thing about eating well and making sure that no one ever goes hungry. I am going to spend the next week trying to run off all the extra calories I consumed.

So my biggest current goal in life is to run with Dean Karnazes. I missed him when he came through town for the Endurance 50 because I had a test in Real Estate Law, and he ran the Ultracentric National Championships in Grapevine last weekend while I was in San Diego. So it looks like I will have to go and find him while he is running home from New York to Los Angeles. GandaMan went and ran with him at the Ultracentric. Go and read his blog post when you get the chance.