Trying a Mini Triathlon

In five weeks, I will swim/cycle/run my first sprint triathlon. This particular race is a half-mile swim, fifteen-mile bike ride and a three-mile run.

Kathy once told me about a cool little program on runnersworld.com that allows you to type in information about yourself and the race you’re planning to run and it spits out a customized training program for you. I hoped to find something like that for triathlons but at first, couldn’t find anything that suited my needs. Finally, I found this training schedule. It’s pretty basic but it works well for me.

I modified it slightly to fit my timeline but it’s essentially the same thing.

Kathy and I are five weeks in with five weeks to go and it’s been pretty awesome.

The race is on October 12th and I do plan on “documenting” it like I did with the half marathon which I’m pretty excited about-I’m designing/MacGuyvering a camera mount for my bike! I haven’t figured out how to film the swimming part. I will probably end up filming before and after that leg of the race but it would be so rad if I could film during the swim. I’ll work on that.

From London

So this has to stay brief because this is costing me a pond an hour to type this. I am currently typing while siting next to a window that overlooks a busy London street. We've been here a few days now and it has been truly amazing. There is so much more I have to say but it will have to wait until I get home.

I will also add some photos when we get home--some of them are hilarious!

In my "twenties"

At least for tonight anyway...

My First (official) Half Marathon

I run through the woods
The distant cars sing to me
I am so tired

It's been a long time coming, but last Sunday I ran my first official half marathon. This blog entry is here to tell (and show) you all about it. Here's what I did; I took a ghetto digital camera with me and filmed various moments throughout my run. Consider it a series of "video vignettes" depicting my 13.1-mile epic saga. I call it an epic saga because my jogging pace was that of an old man's and the video sequence documents pieces of my three hour experience. I came up with the idea to film my run the night before we drove up to Humboldt County (where the run took place). I quickly MacGuyvered a camera mount ala Survivorman and off we went to the race!

These first three videos took place in the car about an hour before the start of the race. It was about 45 or 50 degrees outside so we where trying to stay warm.

Me talking about my gear...

Some pre-race Q and A, conducted by my beautiful wife.

The start of the race!


This one is very short. It mainly shows the crowd running in front of me.


Here is the first video shot on the infamous "camera mount". I don't say anything in it because I was running next to some lady and I was a little tentative about talking to my camera in front of her.


I'm already rambling at the beginning of mile 2.


At this point in the run I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed. It passed, eventually.


This video starts with me trying my first "Double Latte flavored Shot". I don't want to give away my reaction. Also, you can't hear it too well, but I wanted to capture the insanity of half a dozen people yelling, "WATER!" at me. As I passed the "aid stations" I had run by one already and thought it was hilarious that the people were so insistent--also that they all felt the need to each yell it when I had turned the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth ones down.

Oh, one more thing -- a six-year old little girl copiously blew her whistle as I passed her at the aid station. I could hear her high-pitched squeal for half a mile before I reached this station and half a mile after.

This (in my opinion) is where the story starts getting good. Every great story has a protagonist and some kind of antagonist. In the story of My first Half Marathon the antagonist is The Woman in the Blue Sports Bra. I don't know it yet but this woman eventually becomes my bitter rival.

We should file this video under "Thought it was a funny idea at the time, but turns out, I just made an ass of myself". I should have known that not everyone likes to hear people singing randomly--especially when they're running at imed race.

So, at this aid station they offered both water and Gatorade. I think that there might have been a little animosity between the waters and the Gatorades because the Gatorades sounded angry.


It is mile 8 and I am rambling. I don't really have much to say about it except that it makes me laugh when I mention The Woman in the Blue Sports Bra again. I'm obviously still hanging on to the fact that I passed her at mile 5 even though I hadn't seen her since then.


I'm screwing around--what can I say.


This one is interesting to me because at this point I tried to remember the words to Eye of the Tiger but couldn't. My mind was drawing a blank. My depleted energy level prevented me from multi-tasking.


After a couple of minutes practicing off camera, I remembered how the song goes... sort of.


Here, I am commenting on the way I feel at mile 11.


At an attempt to keep my mind on something other than how long I'd been running without stopping, I decided to write a haiku. It only took me a minute or two to compose it but it took me like ten minutes to will myself to say it correctly with the camera on.


This is the last video--me, crossing the finish line! I was pretty much hobbling through miles 11 and 12. Then I noticed my foe (The Woman in the Blue Sports Bra from mile 5) just caught up with me from out of nowhere! She tried to pass me in mile 13 so I really started bookin'.You can see her struggling to pass the guy with the PVC camera mount dangling from his body. If you watch my face closely, you can also see the moment that I saw my wife waiting for me at the finish line.

The Special Ed Blues

So I’m feeling a little discouraged about work right now. I love my job, I really do, it’s just that we started the school year one month ago and three of our nineteen kids have been up for expulsion already. I didn’t realize that this was the case (because things have been so crazy and I haven’t had time to think) until today, when I received a forwarded email from the school counselor originally from an assistant principle, who works a lot with our kids. The email said that he thought it would be a good idea to come down to our classroom and meet with our kids in person to discuss what can and can’t get you expelled. The email also mentioned bringing the campus police officer and the guy at the district office whose only job is to deal with kids that are getting expelled. Here’s the part that made me sad when I thought about it later: I read the email and thought, “That’s a great idea. These kids do need to be reminded of this stuff—they do need to understand that there are consequences for their actions. And those actions—if severe enough—may cost them years of their lives.” I really like the kids I work with, but realizing that this is what is occupying my thoughts just bummed the hell out of me. Why did this bum me out so much? Because I came to the conclusion that I can’t “save” any of them. I can only help them with their exponents and five-paragraph essays. I can only walk them to the door of their classrooms to make sure they don’t ditch class and smoke behind the bleachers. I can only sit with them at lunch to make sure they don’t get out of hand and start throwing crap and cussing at each other. But no, I can’t save them. It just got to me today, that’s all.

13.1!

So just in case anyone was wondering, yes I was planning on running a half marathon yesterday but I was lame and waited till the last minute to sign up for it and it was full. So in lure of an “official” race I decided I’d use my car odometer to find a 13.1 course in my neighborhood and I ran it Saturday morning.

So the bad news is I won’t be running an official half marathon until late October (there’s one in Humboldt through all the redwoods) but the good news is I placed first in the “Phil’s Neighborhood Half Marathon”.

Three "Firsts" in One Day

Last Monday (April 9th) I ran six miles without stopping, I gorged myself at an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet, and I shot 20 gauge slugs at stuffed animals. It was a good day.