Brian's 10 Mile Race

The results are up and I just had to post about Brian's incredible run yesterday. He clocked in at a 6:22 pace. That's one second slower than his record 10k he did back in May!
Apparently he went out too fast at the beginning so he was light-headed at about mile 5. He was determined to stay ahead of some random guy that he picked that was pushing the pace from behind. Anyway, he did it, he's still alive and after some time laying on the sidewalk immediately after the finish line, he was still able to come run the last mile with me. What a guy.
BTW, this race was fast. I mean fast. Where do these guys come from? Out of 415 runners who completed the 10 mile race, an amazing 19 of them broke 6 minute pace.

Get Moving Tucson 10-Miler

After almost 3 years of 10k races, I participated in a 10 mile race today. Phew. Those extra 4 miles are just amazingly hard.
It was a very enjoyable course though, winding through downtown Tucson and through the UofA campus. It almost took my mind off the punishment that I was dealing to my legs. Of course I was so stressed at the beginning thinking that there is no way I was going to be able to run 10 miles. But once again, my negativity failed to get the best of me. With only a few walk breaks in the last two miles, I managed to put together a pretty good time.
It always helps to have Brian come back for me and this time was no exception. I found him chatting up the water ladies at mile 9, ready to hand me a gulp of water before diving into the talk about how I was going to 'take the guy in front of me'. Well, I don't think I took anyone that last mile but I did complete another race with a smile. That has become my goal because it is almost guaranteed that I'll get the announcer to remark on how I'm "still smiling after 10 miles".
The best part of the race before the finish line: Going over three bridges downtown. What fantastic scenery.
The best part of the race after the finish line: Easy. Chocolate-covered bananas!

Sushi

Tonight was my first try at making sushi. It came out pretty darn good. I later found out that the art of sushi is cutting things really small. I can do that next time probably.









I put cucumber, avocado, green onion and mango on them. Brian didn't like the mango at first but then he ventured into wasabi territory and really liked the sweet and spicy together. I think we'll try again soon.

"Hey There Delilah" Madness

So I thought that I was the only person that thought that The Plain White T's song was just plain creepy. It doesn't sound sweet, it sounds like Delilah has no idea that this guy is drooling over her 1,000 miles away.
It turns out that lots of people think the song is kind of creepy. For the best response to the song check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXlX5t1K6X0 (the lyrics are worth watching the lame video for). The song has even got it's own Wikipedia page.
That will give you something to think about the next time you're enjoying this sweet song, you sicko!

More Pictures of Kayaking

Breck so generously posted select pictures that he took to a website. Already it's hard to remember that I was in this beautiful place. Enjoy!
http://www.cladesign.com/vancouver/orca.html

Vancouver Island Kayaking Trip

I'm back from a freakin fantastic four day trip to kayak with the orcas. It was a great experience and one of the most serene vacations that I have ever taken.
I'm still waiting on some pictures from a fellow traveller on the trip but here's a sneak preview of some of the scenery and silliness experienced.

Zacher Family Slumber Party - Part 2

Due to popular demand (Jen)... a review of slumber party part 2.



This episode of the slumber party was held at Denise's family cabin near Payson. Since this was the last week in July, of course it was a brilliant idea on the part of Steve and Denise to move the party out of the valley.
The weekend was marked by lots of relaxing, a hike under Tonto Natural Bridge, making custom pizzas, playing a very personalized version of Monopoly, a visit to the fish farm and of course, lots of button pushing. I, for one, had a fantastic time with all the events. Looking forward to part 3!

Warning; Post entirely about running

A fair warning to those of you who are less than interested in running in general.
For those of you still with me, I have to describe the weird thing that happened this morning while doing intervals.
So two weeks ago, I ran my fastest 400m interval ever - 2:01! This was faster than my previous PR by a whole second, and faster than my "average time" by about 10 seconds. I was hugely psyched and couldn't wait for the next week's session to see whether I could match it again. The weekend after that though, I promptly came down with a chest cold. (Weird I know - In the summer? Who gets colds in the summer? This was my first.) So the retry had to wait another week.
This morning I got a late start and my legs were quite sore from lifting weights yesterday. I resolved that I would get out there and do my best although I suspected lingering coughs and chest congestion were going to make it very difficult. So it was with great surprise when I pushed stop at the end of the first 400 and registered 1:58 on my watch. 3 seconds faster after being sick? This was getting weird.
So I told myself to slow it down a little or I wouldn't make it through the 3 more 400s that I had planned on doing.
The second 400 felt much slower, I was guessing 2:08 would be my finishing time. I pushed stop on the watch, looked down and saw 1:49.89. I came to a stop and my mouth dropped open. I quickly began calculating all the ways that I could be screwing up pushing start and then pushing stop. Brian wasn't there yet so I ran back to the car to get my cell phone to record these times. Brian showed up around that time and laughed as I tried to figure out how to write a memo on the phone. After explaining to him that I may never see these times again, he reminded me that there were two left and I trotted off to do them.
I was sure the last two couldn't break 2 minutes, I was just too tired. But I did! I ended up with 4 amazing times (for me) that I'm sure will carry me for at least a year.
1:58.48
1:49.89
1:52.37
1:56.21

Brian's Humongous Carrot

The other white meat

Brian has always kind of chuckled when I quote this old pork ad. I just thought it was my amazingly humorous delivery.
It turns out that he's laughing because the whole thing is a sham! Pork is not the other white meat. It may look kinda lighter than beef but nutritionally, you might as well have yourself a big old slab of cow.
My RealAge newsletter the other day sent an email reminding me that as a general rule, red meat should be limited to one serving per week. AND... AND... that pork counts as red meat!!! Can you believe it?
Now I know that some of you out there are saying "duh, bacon". But you have to realize that I'm just about meat-illiterate and it never occurred to me that there wasn't also a "bacon cut" on a cow. You know, bacon was just the most ridiculously fatty part of the pig. I thought that the health aspects of bacon had more to do with the cut than the animal.
Luckily I don't really like eating pig so now it is pretty easy to convince Brian that we should never eat it again. BUT There is this fantastic Losbeto's near us that makes beef green chile burritos that I don't think I could go longer than a week without. So I guess we know how my once a week quota is going to be filled... until I convice them to make a chicken green chile burrito!

On cheesy running songs

There's something about hard physical exercise that makes even the cheesiest of things seem so emotional.
Lately, one of my favorite running songs is "Lose Yourself" by Eminem. Crazy right? While I'm sitting still here writing this, I can hardly stomach the thought of piping Eminem directly into my ears.
But when I'm out on the road and I'm hot and I'm tired and I have less than a mile to go, I fast forward to this song and it is just so darn motivating. It starts with a very cheesy instrumental part, then he starts talking about how hard life is or something like that and then there's this snippet: "oh there goes gravity". I swear that gravity does let up for a split second after that line and I feel great.
Later on in the song there's some line like "feet fail me not cuz maybe the only opportunity I got". I know, I know. I hope that everyone out there is rolling their eyes. At that point I always have a little thought about how lucky I am that I have such a healthy body that always comes back from the abuse I dole out.
Inspiration can be found almost anywhere.

Cinco de Mayo 10K

Brian and I ran a Cinco de Mayo 10k on Seis de Mayo this year. It is a really beautiful race and we had perfect weather to make it extra nice.
Unfortunately, I haven't felt so good the past couple of days. I must have caught a little bug somewhere. When I got to the one mile mark, I had felt like I already had run for eight miles. Not a good thing.
So I walked more than I've walked in any other race in my life and finished slower than any 10k I've run in my life. At least I was still enjoying myself and enjoying the beautiful course. It was a pretty tough one to run because of the hills but I walked most of those and just ran the downs.
Brian came back for me like usual. He was a huge motivation and talked me into passing by three people that I had no intention on passing before he met up with me.
Speaking of Brian... He ran a personal best at 39 minutes! That's fast!
Now for the Mexican breakfast... They ran out. They're going to be getting a letter from me about that. I was very disappointed. Maybe next year Brian will get a plate for both of us as soon as he finishes like I suggested.

Inspiring post for Brian

See Brian, even when you have nothing interesting to say, you can post a really awesome photo. (I did not take this photo. Seriously, did you think I was that good?)

Guitar and cello?

Brian is all excited about doing a guitar/cello duet together. Since neither of us are musically talented enough to do composition, this ought to be very interesting.
Anybody out there want to consult on how we get this going? (I should mention that I have a very limited range of notes that I can play on the cello and I can't do any of that vibratto crap :)

Zacher Family Slumber Party

Part one of 2007 Zacher Family Slumber Party was a blast. We all participated in a tour of the Pima Air and Space Museum, a Segway tour of downtown Tucson, Sunday morning pancakes and horseback riding. It was a very busy and very fun weekend. I can't wait until part two...

My own marathon

Yesterday I went out for a long run. And I mean LONG.
You see, I ran 13 miles yesterday, the length of a half marathon. Brian asked me why I did it. That part was obvious; I wanted to see if I could. I think that has been my whole push to run that distance. Just to see if I could do it.
It takes me a really long time to run 13 miles. Way too much time to think about what I'm doing and why.
So when I got home, I was an interesting mix of happy and sad at the same time. I was happy. I mean, I ran 13 miles! I have been saying that this is the longest distance that I will ever run in my life. It's my own marathon. Sad because I realized that getting there was all the fun. I have no desire to repeat that feat in a race now. Maybe ever.
My knees are tired. I know all about muscle soreness but this is joint soreness. There is no pain but there is definite soreness. Now, if you examine my motivation to run for the last 2-1/2 years, you'll note that it has been all about health. That's why I'm jogging races instead of run-walking them, right? To be exact, it's about my health when I'm 70 or 80. I want to be doing things right now that will make me at the top of my game then. I realized yesterday that the feeling in my knees is most likely not going to be good for me when I'm 80.
I read somewhere a quote from a doctor that said if anyone is running more than a 3 mile run, they're doing it for reasons other than health. I think that he means the wearing parts of running overcome the cardio, muscular and skeletal benefits of running at around 3 miles. I think that I agree with him. Maybe the distance varies a little from person to person but I don't think you can exceed 10k distance without doing it for a different purpose.
So am I going to run longer distances than 3 miles? You betcha. Because I don't think that it is causing damage (or else I would have some kind of recovery times) for me to run 10ks. But I don't think that I'll go longer than that. I can work on my 10k time for the next 10 years and be perfectly happy. Besides, an hour out of my day for a race or training? That's something that I can live with for the next 50 years of my life.

Lost Dutchman 10k 2007

Denise and I ran the Lost Dutchman 10k today. I was so very worried about the amount of wind and the temperatures from the day before. I thought it would be a very hard day. But luck was on our side; the cloud cover kept the sun off of us and the wind was gusty but not constant.
I'm awaiting pictures from others that are smart enough to remember to bring their cameras. Until then, Steve took this on his blackberry in the car prior to the race. You'll have to wait for the picture where we look exhausted :)

Super Bowl Luck

I entered a Super Bowl pool at work this year.
I bought two squares for $10 and guess what... I won! Twice! I won $200! It made watching the game so interesting that I actually watched the whole game. Well, maybe it was actually my very cool neighbors that I drank beer and ate Chinese soups with that made it fun.

Running Socks

These are a pair of running socks that dad got me for Christmas this year. They are probably a $50 pair of socks but they are really awesome.
Somehow, they get what feels like an inch of cushion under your feet without changing the fit of your shoe. All the cushion is under your feet and the thickness of the sock gets thinner on top -- without any seams.
And what are the cool little tabs on the back? I thought they were for cushioning your heel against the shoes lip but I think that Brian came up with a better idea: they keep your sock from slipping down your heel.
These are great socks and I recommend that everyone get a pair no matter how much they cost!

9.75 Miles

Phew.
I thought I was stuck at eight miles.
I only have six weeks until I am attempting a half marathon at the Lost Dutchman (13.1 miles) and I was getting seriously worried that I was stuck at eight miles.
I'm pretty tired but thanks to my friend Lorien and her information about glucose absorption rates, I'm doing great. Maybe I'll make it after all...