Category — Fitness/Wellness

Much to my co-worker’s surprise, I’m sure, I ran in the 28th Annual Samson Stomp 5K run at the Milwaukee Couty Zoo this morning and lived to tell about it. How cold was it? The crappy camera phone pic to the left shows my car thought it was -3 F when I parked at the Zoo this morning. This was definitely the coldest weather I’d ever run in, but with probably 5 layers of clothing, it wasn’t that bad.

How did I do? Much better than I thought. The race wasn’t chip timed, but the stop watch on my heart rate montior says I ran the 5K in 30:18. (the 166 was my average heart rate.) I was going to be happy with anything under 40min, since that has been roughly my time on the treadmill lately, so to just barely miss a sub-30 5K was surprising. My official time, which is based off the race start time, will be a little higher, but not much. Probably under 32:00.With the cold, my son was unable to run, so I’m still looking for a race for him to run. I did give him my t-shirt since I probably wouldn’t wear it (I’m not a long sleeve t-shirt person.)

The race is organized to support the Gorilla’s at the zoo. Samson was a fairly well loved guy whose descendants still live amongst what is the largest Gorilla population in any Zoo in the US. My wife informed me the Milwaukee Public Museum just finished up a big exhibit on Samson.  There was one guy dress in a Gorilla costume that ran today. I managed to get a quick shot of him:

Update: My official time came in at 30:56

I’m still going to attempt the Samson Stop 5k tomorrow at the Milwaukee County Zoo.  Current forecast has the temperature at the start at -5° F (-24°F wind chill).  I consulted with cold weather runner extraordinare Nat and I think I’ve got the gear to stay warm.  Plus it’s only a 5K - even in my current state I’ll be out there less than an hour (hopefully much less, but I’ve been a slug for a while).

So I finally hit the road for the first time since the Grand Rapids Marathon. I’d done some mileage on the treadmill over the past month or so, but forgot how much more I like actually moving while I run. All said and done, I probably ran about 3.5 miles. As the photo to the left shows, there is a fair amount of snow left in our parts, but the roads are fairly clear.

I’m actually going to run my first race of the year next weekend, the 28th Annual Samson Stomp at the Milwaukee County Zoo. It’s a 5k, so my serious lack of training shouldn’t be too much of a hindrance - I’ll PR, but only because it’ll be my first 5k. They actually have two kids races, a 1 mile and a 1/4 mile. My son is going to run the 1/4 miler - his first race ever!

BTW - Today’s project 365 shot is right up there, click for a larger version.

My issue of Runners World came in the mail yesterday and it sat on the counter all last night.  On the way out the door to work this morning I happened to glance at it and saw one of the cover stories was titled “How the Chicago Marathon Melted Down” Intrigued, I took it to work and read it.

There isn’t a whole lot new said, but it is the best summary I’ve seen is the best summary to date I’ve seen. Race officials completely underestimated the weather, had supplies positioned wrong, and by the time they realized this, it was too late.  Best quote:

“There are conflicting stories about whether fluid stations ran dry, whether the race was truly canceled, and whether the day was an outright disaster or a calamity averted. The event yielded a photo finish without photo-finish equipment, a woman who was sucker punched in the face, and at least one potential lawsuit. In a word: chaos.

The accounts of the lady who was sucker punched is interesting, and the stories from those who experienced the medical response are both amazing and frustrating. There still isn’t a clear picture around the one death, Chad Schieber. Evidentially the Chicago Office of Emergency Management is denying there was even a call for help for him, yet the City of Niles has record of him being transported on one of their ambulances. Even the true cause of death is still questioned.

Runners World usually re-publishes all its articles on-line, yet I don’t see this one up yet.  Once it is, I’ll post a link for those of you who might now get it.

While the Holidays were nice, it is nice to try and settle back into a routine, or at least have the prospect of doing so. I know the time for reflecting on the past year is supposed to take place in December, but I’ve been pretty much offline since before Christmas, so I’m a bit late.

Last Year’s Resolutions

Looking back to my list from last year, I hit 50% of my goals.  I ran in not one, but two marathons, and finished one of them.  I also managed to post a whole lot more here in one year than I did in the whole time I had my blog on MSDN. I hit somewhere over 200 posts last year (I’m too lazy to count), but still don’t really have a direction for the blog, which still suits me fine for the time being. (I looked the other day and they finally shut me out of my MSDN site.  Up until about July I still had edit access. )

Where did I miss?  I only read maybe two works of fiction last year - Angels and Demons as I mentioned in my post, and The Hobbit.  So much else  took my attention that I’m not sad I didn’t meet this goal. 

I also didn’t update my MCSD.  This goal was probably a result of my Koolaid hangover from working at Microsoft so long.  While I did do quite a bit of actual software development (my primary reason for leaving), I also opened my eyes to the world outside of Microsoft.  While I’m still focused on ASP.NET development, I’ve dabbled a bit in PHP, mainly in helping to maintain WMSE.org.

What About This Year

Toward the end of last year, I read a great post by Christine Kane on a better way to set goals for the New Year.  I don’t know where along the way I added her to my Google Reader feedlist, but she doesn’t write that often and when she does it’s usually insightful, so she’s stayed through a lot of the purging that I do when I find myself dedicating to much time to reading RSS feeds.

Christine points out that typical New Year’s resolutions have  a DO-HAVE-BE model, “I will DO this thing. So I can HAVE this thing and I can BE this thing.” She turns it on its head and says to start at BE.  Pick one word to guide you through the year and let your actions come from that.

So I’m choosing the word “healthy.”  If I got to pick two words, the second would probably be “balance” but that would be partly in support of the first.  While I ran a ton last year, and got in pretty good shape from it, I think it was at the expense of a lot of other healthy routines I had.  Plus, since the marathon, I’ve been running a lot less (”a lot less” meaning zero.)  Hopefully I can strike a balance and improve my health this year, both mental and physical.

Photography

One thing I thought was my list last year but isn’t, was to make some money with my camera.  I did manage to do that.  In September I got the first five star rating from the Popular Photography editors on their PopPhoto Flash blog and my image made it into a web exclusive article. Sadly, that didn’t net me any money, but it did give me some confidence to become a professional photographer, at least part-time.

While I haven’t sold any of my stock photography yet, I did do several portrait sessions and sold some prints.  Below are some shots from that:

I’m going to keep at the photography, too.  Try as I might, I can’t bend “healthy” into that endeavor, but do have one straight-up New Year’s resolution.  I’m going to take at least one picture everyday for the whole year and post it up for critique.  Not an original by far, but one that sounds challenging.  I haven’t figured out where I’m going to host the project, maybe Flickr, maybe here.  I’ve got my shot for yesterday, and will get my shot for today. 

Once I have a home for the project, I’ll put up a link here.

Thanks for sticking with me on this huge post.  It grew bigger than I planned.  Thanks also for stopping by my site.  Feedburner still tells me I’ve got dozens of subscribers, and the logs say I still get a fair amount of traffic on the site itself.

I hope you all stick around to see what this year brings.

I’m not usually one for the gossip crap that pervades the interwebs, but from Runners World’s Daily Views blog, the news from the NYC Marathon is Katie Holmes ran it in 5:29.  Having finished Grand Rapids in 5:27, at least I’m faster.  Thing that I noted in this picture that had no photo credit is she is wearing headphones, which are usually prohibited in Marathons (according to the race director of the Grand Rapids Marathon, its part of the USATF sanctioning).

Congrats to all the finishers in NYC, including MS. Holmes!

Registration for the 2008 Hustle up the Hancock opened today. As of this writing, the full climb is sold out and I’d suspect the half-climb will be soon too. After the amount of money we spent on me the Chicago Marathon (hotels take it upon themselves to rape you that weekend), it just isn’t in the budget for next year.  Plus, if you’ve ever done this event, you know that the journey to the top of the John Hancock Tower is faster than your journey back down.  In years past, my time to climb has been in the 20min neighborhood, and the line for the elevator back down is in the 90min neighborhood.  That doesn’t make it the most kid friendly, so add babysitting onto the tab.

It’s a bit sad, really.  This was my first event, and completing it was my first realization that I could actually participate in strenuous events. I know there are a ton of great events in the Milwaukee area, and I plan on trying to find an participate in those. I still haven’t determine what they’ll be (probably at least a couple 5k’s and some longer races), but that is still a few months off.

Good luck to all you climbers that got in! I will say despite the long elevator line afterward, it is well worth it.  There are thousands of races out there, but only one chance a year to climb the 1632 stairs to the observation deck of "Big  John." Plus it benefits a great cause, and having also done Go Vertical! Chicago (climbing the Sears Tower, registration is still open today for the November 11th climb), I can say it is a very well run event.

This is overdue, I know, but I’m back to reality now after being away from my computer for a while, I’ve also plowed through a lot of pending work.  I wanted post a better recap of my race weekend, as well as a photo of the hardware I collected (I found the image to the left in the GRM Flickr pool - an amazing shot of the finish medal by Terry Johnson)

We left Milwaukee early Saturday and had an uneventful drive, though it was a bit bittersweet to drive through downtown Chicago.  Especially through the south side where I didn’t make it three weeks prior. Once across the Indiana border into Michigan, I remembered how gorgeous Western Michigan was.  Fall colors were pretty close to peak through most of the drive.

We stayed at the brand new JW Marriott Grand Rapids. Open only a month, the Hotel was amazing - one of the nicest places I’ve stayed.  Even better was that we stayed on Marriott points even though they were at 95% capacity for Saturday night (all that travel in my MCS days is good for something now). We went to Expo at the YMCA, picked up my stuff and then I headed back to the hotel to chill out.

Knowing my time was going to be north of five hours, I decided to do the "velocity challenged" start at 7am. When I got up around 6am my phone beeped with a text message from Eliezer telling me he was awake and willing to start at 7am as well.  I sent him a quick message telling him that was my plan and got dressed.

Checking the weather the night before, I knew it was going to be cold, especially before sunrise which wasn’t until 8:15. I wore my running tights, a technical long sleeve top, and the race shirt, which was a really nice long sleeve Brooks shirt. Not only did the race end up being way better managed than the Chicago marathon, but Chicago only managed to pony up for a cheap-ass cotton t-shirt that I’ll never wear. Why is the entry fee $40 more in Chicago?

I made it to the starting area around 6:40. Still on central time it felt like 5:40. I met up with Eliezer who’d just picked up his race packet.  There was a good crowd at the early start, and at 7am, Don sent us on our way. My wife and my son made it a few minutes before hand to send us off (just enough time for a quick picture with my son). The first part of the course was still on city streets, so fairly well lit, but quickly went off road onto various trails.  The course was well marked with glow sticks on either side, but it was dark!

The only knock against the race is the course not conducive to spectators, but that didn’t stop my wife.  She again studied the course map and spent a fair amount of time on Google maps figuring how to get around.  The one benefit is the course doubles back on itself, so I’d pass by the major spectator points twice.  After the first point, she got some advice from some locals who directed her to another spot not on the map.  As Eliezer and I crested a hill, we heard some spectators ahead and found my wife, son, and a Grand Rapids Police officer who was there directing traffic around the course. I was so happy to see them I almost missed the turn.

Early on, Eliezer and I were maintaining a good 5/1 run to walk ratio.  There were a few times I felt I was running a bit faster than I might have by myself, but it was nice to have someone else to help push me a long.  Through the aid stops, the volunteers were great. They were super friendly shouting words of encouragement.  In all it was a huge difference from Chicago where most tables were three runners deep looking for anything wet to drink.

By the time the sun came up, we were a good 1:30 into the race and I looked down and saw frost on my tights.  Eliezer had frost on his hat through most the race too.  A far cry from sweltering temperatures three weeks prior.  The run was actually pretty decent up to about 15miles. We had a goal pace of 12min/mi and were handily beating that on our splits. Around the 15mile mark is when our legs started to protest a bit. We both felt it around the same time. We lengthened our walk breaks out to 2 minutes at times and pressed on.

I will say this about the course, even it were not the first marathon I finished, it would still be one of the more memorable runs I’ve had.  A large portion of the course is on wooded bike paths along the Grand River, including traversing an awesome foot bridge over the river twice. The only run that comes close is running along the Snohomish River near the Red Hook brewery at the crack of dawn out in Washington state and having a bald eagle swoop over head. The scenery is absolutely breath taking, as this photo by Katie Weller shows.

As we neared the last few miles, I was planning in my mind when I was going to sprint.  I knew I had only a little left, and I knew it wasn’t much.  Hitting mile 25, we were back in the city and spectators were on the street encouraging us on.  I knew my son wanted to run the last part with me, and once we hit mile 26, I told Eliezer I was going to go.  I found my wife and son about 100 yards from the finish.  My son has been itching all summer to run with me, and after talking to a few folks on Saturday who’d run last year, they said the finish was the perfect place for him to do it.

Let me say this, my five year old is fast.  Granted, I was running on pure adrenaline at that point, but it was an honest struggle to keep up with him.  He did great (he’d received non-stop instruction the previous 30 mins on not running into anyone) and we crossed the finish line together. 

I know I thanked a bunch of folks earlier, but I’ll thank them again.  Thanks to Tom and Amy at Runners Lounge.  Thanks to lifestudent and Nat, fellow bloggers who stopped by here often with words of encouragement.

Thanks again to my running partner and the guy who put this crazy idea in my head in the first place, Eliezer Appleton:

Eliezer and Me at the Finish

And thanks most of all to my amazing wife, Amy. She put up with three more weeks of me training, on top of the 30 or so prior to that. Without her I would not have made it through this incredible journey.

Just a quick post (I didn’t bring my laptop so I’m posting from the business center of the JW Marriott Grand Rapids) - I finished the 2007 Grand Rapids Marathon!

No official time yet, but I’m pretty sure it is going to be around 5:24. I got to run the whole race with the man who put the idea in my head, Eliezer Appleton, which was a bonus.  The course was actually one of the most beautiful runs I’ve had - mainly on wooded bike trails through a huge park just outside downtown. I would highly recommend this race if you’re looking for one to run. They do both a full and half marathon.

Thank you to all the volunteers, this race was amazingly run and I know it was because of you things went so smoothly.  A big thanks to the random Grand Rapids citizens who helped my poor wife navigate around the area - she cheered me on from probably 5 different spots!

Thanks most of all to my amazing wife, Amy.  Seriously I would not have made this journey without you.

I found this user submitted video on Runners World’s web site today (best I can do is a link, no embedding of their videos it seems.) One of the runners took this with what I’m guessing is a cell phone.  I can say I don’t remember it looking quite this chaotic when I ran through, but it was pretty close.  This looks like the earlier aid stations and I don’t remember as many people walking. Also, the desperate sounding cries of "water!" are not the runners, but the volunteers letting runners know they are holding out cups of water.

I didn’t see people dunking themselves in the above pictured fountain, but did see people wade into this fountain on the north end of Lincoln Park.  The image from Microsoft Virtual Earth looking East. The road at the bottom is Stockton. Click the picture to see it on Virtual Earth

My guess is the RW video is not the last, though I haven’t gone looking for more.

Update:  I guess all I had to do was look.  There are quite a few videos people shot on the course.  This one shows the fountain I was talking about (shaky at best):