Terminal Berkeley Denizen

Revenge of TL;DR - My Dopey Challenge Race Report! (In THREE parts!)

2017-01-11T13:48:40Z

Last week I did a series of consecutive races in a Disney Run event called the Dopey Challenge. It's a 5K, a 10K, a half marathon, and then a full marathon, run one after the other in four consecutive days.

My race report is in three parts. Yes, it's that long. Reading it is like runnning the Dopey Challenge!

- The Beginning - The Walt Disney World 5K and the 10K

- Drama Unleashes in the Harrowing tale of the Walt Disney World Half Marathon!

- The Walt Disney World Full Marathon Race Report

Race Report: The 2017 Dopey Challenge, Part III - The Walt Disney World Marathon

2017-01-11T01:55:57Z

The Day of Reckoning: The final day of the Dopey Challenge - The Walt Disney World Marathon

When I signed up for the Dopey Challenge, I wasn't at all worried about the first three races. I had run that many miles in a shorter time during Ragnar Relays. The marathon was what concerned me more than anything else. But as with the first three races, I vowed to run this one easy.

My strategy for this race: Run easy for the first thirteen miles, and then assess where I was at. At least one short walking break at every mile. If I got bottled up by slower runners or walking walls, (Groups of friends who walk side-by-side when taking walking breaks because I don't know why,) just let myself get bottled up.

One advantage of running this race: It was my last one. Even if it was the longest, I didn't have to worry about saving myself for the next day.

We were brought to the same area as the first two races, but our 5K/10K corrals were dark. We wouldn't be starting there. Our corrals were somewhere else, and I couldn't tell where.

The first three races had warm or decent weather. No such luck for today. The wake of the storm had brought cold, cold air. It was freezing. I had bought a plastic poncho the other day to help protect me from the cold. I could have worn one of my long-sleeved running shirts, but I heat up too quickly in those shirts and start to boil over, even in really cold weather. (It has to be near freezing for me to run in long sleeves.)

I scrunched myself into my poncho which helped keep the cold wind from slicing me too much. To help warm myself up, I bought a cup of hot chocolate from a food stand. While I was making my way to the corrals, a large metal sign blew over in the wind and almost smashed into me. I managed to catch it just in time before it bruised my hip, but that also meant I spilled hot chocolate all over my poncho and myself, and even got some on one of my favorite running shirts, my Pixie Dust Challenge shirt.

As I mentioned before, we weren't going to the regular corrals. We were being herded to an obscure corner of the field. I asked another runner if he knew where we were being taken and he told me we had a loooong walk ahead of us. He wasn't kidding. Down one long path, and then around a turn and down another long path, I quipped to another runner that it seemed we were being taken on a 27.2 mile race.

It turns out there were far more runners for this marathon than there were for the first two races. Suddenly I didn't see very many Dopey bibs anymore. Most of the bibs were just for the marathon. (I say, as if "just a marathon" were a small thing.) For the first time the Dopeys seemed to be outnumbered! (And I had to wonder what the half marathon would have looked like. Mostly Dopeys and Goofys? More Halfers? Hmmm...)

Despite the large number of corrals, the organizers were pretty good about launching us. As my corral wandered closer and closer to the start, I knew I couldn't keep my plastic poncho on during the race. People were ditching their temporary coverings along the metal barriers as they moved closer to the start. I found a couple of commemorative Disney shirts that someone had ditched, and I had to snatch them up to see if they were my size. Nope. Smalls.

My corral finally took off around 6 AM. Not bad, I thought. I was worried it would take longer for my corral to get out. Ditching my poncho, I was one of the very few people running in bare arms. I was a little warmer when I finally got to move, but I was still really cold. Eventually I found a light jacket on the ground, a Niagara Falls International Marathon jacket with a Canadian leaf, which fit me just fine. I donned it and ran with it for awhile to keep myself from freezing too much.

True to my word, I stopped for pictures and kept enforcing walking breaks at every mile. Despite an easier than usual run, I decided I couldn't run it at the same pace as the first three. I did pick it up, but the walking breaks helped me from tiring out.

The initial start was along a long road. First we made our way to thee Magic Kingdom Park. We knew we were going there because we ran right through the main gate! Running around the park was a gas, though keeping my pace easy was hardly a problem, as going through the park meant running many really narrow race paths. That would come up again and again throughout the race.

After that we took a long and winding road to the Animal Kingdom Park. Some of the roads were the main streets that went from park-to-park, but sometimes we ran backroads and got to see behind-the-scenes artifacts. And one point we spotted a ride graveyard, which had relics of rides long past, such as Mister Toad's Wild Ride, (A car,) and an old gondola cab, and even a submarine from the Nautilus adventure.

In the Animal Kingdom, the park had already opened for business by the time my herd had gotten there, and the running road was sequestered from the regular walkways by traffic cones. Surprisingly, the guests in the park really stayed clear of the running path. I don't know if it was because there was such a herd of runners going through it, or if for once the civilians were actually being decent about keeping clear of runners. Disney's pretty good about putting up warning signs. They may have had a lot of "DO NOT INTERFERE WITH THE RUNNERS OR ELSE!" signs posted about the entrance.

I was informed by runners and even staff that, if we wanted to, runners were free to veer off and grab a ride on the Himalayas roller coaster during the marathon. It was tempting, but I was running a pretty damn slow marathon already and didn't want to chew into my time. (Besides, I had rode it the day before anyways.) It was just before the Himalayas ride that I ditched the Niagara Falls jacket. I placed it on top of a pile of other discarded clothes, as it had gotten warm enough to run without it.

We had hit the halfway point in the Animal Kingdom. I had really taken it super easy for the first half, true to my intentions. Now I picked up the pace a little. Back out onto the roadway, we were headed for the ESPN complex, the giant sprawling sports addict place where the running expo had been held. Between miles 16 and 17 we saw a loooooong stream of runners herding down the road. This is where we could really see a long stretch of the race. It was more than a little intimidating. seeing so much of the course in a flat and open field.

Much of the run in the ESPN complex was just long roads, but we did get to run through their baseball stadium. It was within the ESPN megaplex that we hit mile 20. That's when I said, damn the torpedos!

The WDW Marathon would turn out to be the slowest marathon I've ever run. But that's because I stuck to a plan of super easy marathon running. At mile twenty I still felt fairly strong and fresh, so I hit the jets.

I still took my quick walking breaks at every mile, and I walked through the aid stations, but I quickly broke into a run afterwards. This is where the easy parts paid off. Virtually everyone else in the race was hitting the wall, and I was passing them up. For the last six miles of the race I must have literally passed at least several hundred runners. I decided to run around the bottlenecks, rather than let them slow me down or hold me up. "On your left!"

We hit Hollywood Studios around mile 23, and then it was a quick jog to Epcot, where I winded my way through runner after runner after groups of runners. I kept my new running pace all the way through to the finish line.

Yes, I got negative splits and how! The longer I ran the race, the faster I got. Now if only I could manage that during a regular marathon at a regular pace! :)

The Aftermath

Considering I had completed 48.6 miles of races, I felt pretty good. Only a slight amount of thigh soreness, and just a little bit of stiffness. I felt better at the end of the Dopey Challenge than I had felt at the end of many of my marathons. Easy does it was the motto for this challenge, and it paid off. I even walked all around one of the Disney World parks the day after!

I also attribute that to the training my PT has been putting into my running form. It makes running and recovery so much easier when I've adjusted a few things about my stride, my cadence, and my gait.

In any case, so went the grandest running adventure of mine to date!

Pics!

Me, freezing my tucas off in the food line before the race. Very warm the day before, now super super cold! :O

Entering thee Magic Kingdom! :D

Lotsa neat stuff to see during Disney runs! :D

I stopped a few times to get pics with characters. Great fun!

This soldier was barking orders. "Get up that hill! Move it move it! Drop and give me ten!" (One runner did!)

My Dopey Challenge medals, from left to right starting at the top: 5K, 10K, Half, Full Marathon. On the bottom my Dopey and Goofy Challenge medals!

Race Report: The 2017 Dopey Challenge, Part II - The Unofficial WDW Half Marathon

2017-01-11T01:40:42Z

From Agony to Ecstasy: Uncancelling the cancelled Half Marathon

There had been some weather advisories about the Walt Disney World Half Marathon which was to take place on Saturday. Weather advisories aren't at all uncommon for races. I've run marathons through torrential downpours with forty mile an hour winds, through cold so biting that water froze instantly when it hit the ground. (Skate through the water station!) And I've run in 100+ heat.

But I've never signed up for a race that was ever cancelled because of the weather. Until this one.

I was out wandering around Epcot on Friday evening when a friend texted me. "They actually cancelled the race???" I quickly checked my email. Yep. Because of an incoming storm Run Disney decided to cancel the Half Marathon. It was not the storm so much that prompted their decision to cancel the race, so much as it was the lightning that came with it.

I was crushed. All of the preparation, all of the time and expense to go across the country and run four straight days of races, just to have one pulled out from under me.

The details came through. We would still get our medals. They would just give them to us. We were also getting registration refunds. And everyone doing the Dopey and Goofy challenges, (The Goofy Challenge is the half and the full,) would still qualify as having completed the challenges so long as they finished the marathon on Sunday.

I know it could have been worse. A friend of mine had gone all the way to New York for the 2012 Marathon, just to have her marathon cancelled on her. (And she wasn't at all happy about the way they went about it either. First saying it was going to happen after the storm, and then changing their minds.) It wasn't as if our whole weekend was over, unless you were one of the truly unfortunate who only registered for the half.

Even so, I came out to run a four race challenge, not a three race challenge and what-the-heck-we'll-just-give-you-the-third-race-as-a-gimme challenge. I was mad. I was disappointed. I was dismayed.

After crying in my beer and cursing the Gods, I decided that I couldn't accept the half medal or the WDW half marathon shirt without actually running the distance. Many people on the Facebook site said they were going out to run 13.1 the next day. Walking around the lobby of my hotel, I even ran into runners who were going out to run their half marathons that evening.

To motivate myself, I even created a Facebook event: The Jeffrey's WDW unofficial Half Marathon. The event details:

"I'm running a half marathon tomorrow morning in spite of the weather and the official cancellation of the WDW Half Marathon, because if I don't I will hate myself for the rest of my life! They will still be giving us the medal, but I need to run it anyways because if I don't, I don't deserve it. Will be in the lobby of the Swan Hotel at 6 AM. Running very easy so I don't kill myself for the Marathon.

Run will mostly involve the Boardwalk Half, but may take other courses as weather, conditions, or whimsy apply.

Others are welcome to join, but zero percent body fatters who need to sprint and Hanz n' Franzers will be disappointed with my pace. Taking place despite rain, shine, lightning, alligators, Tsunami, or alien invasion!"

Even though I had promised myself I would start running at 6 AM, I just couldn't sleep. Around 4 AM I got myself ready, and I was out the door at 4:30 AM. I even had my Dopey Challenge bib on.

There was very little rain. It was cloudy, but some of the sky still poked through. The most remarkable thing was that it was warm. Very warm! There was some lightning, but it was off in the distance.

My hotel was right next to a long boardwalk of shops and restaurants that loop around near Epcot and along a row of timeshares. The Boardwalk Loop. I started out by running around that particular loop. Right away I ran into a few other runners who were also out to run 13.1's, using their Garmins and Runkeepers and Nike +'s to track their mileage. Around the Boardwalk loop, I ran into a young woman who was out to cheer her friends. She even had a sign with her! I stopped and talk to her for a bit. I ran into a few more runners, some who told me about a path that went along to the Hollywood Studios Park, which I ran a few times.

The longer I ran, the more runners were out. Many were running in small groups, and some larger groups came by. A group of about six women running together started singing: "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to run we go..." So many runners cheered me on as we ran past each other, and I did the same. They all said the same thing: They couldn't accept that medal without doing the work.

Eventually I ran across another runner, a real Run Disney veteran, just starting her run. She was dressed as Donald Duck and we ran together and chatted for about three miles. Her pace was nice and slow, so it helped to keep up with her.

Throughout the entire morning, even after my run, I saw runners out doing their 13.1's. Spectators even started to form, some shaking pom poms, and others with cowbells yelling out the standard hoots: "You look great!" "Keep it up!" "You can do it!" It was quite a sight, seeing all of those people putting in the miles so they could accept their medals with pride and accomplishment.

And almost every one of them had on Dopey bibs.

And the end of my run I asked a young woman coming out of my hotel if she could take a picture of me to commemorate my run. Looking at my picture, I realized how satisfied I looked. No, I didn't get crammed into a crowded corral and stand around for more than an hour waiting for a race to start, and I didn't run across timing mats and through aid stations, and have a tired volunteer put a medal around my neck, but I put in my miles, and I no longer felt cheated out of my race, especially because of the camaraderie and support of my fellow Dopey runners

Pics!

The event page I created on Facebook for this run!

Me at the start of my unofficial WDW half! It was really warm, despite being WTH-o'clock!

This young woman was out to cheer on her friends who were doing their halves. She ended up cheering for many other runners going by.

A triumphant me after running my unofficial half!

Race Report: The 2017 Dopey Challenge, Part I - The Beginning, the 5K, and the 10K!

2017-01-11T01:21:42Z

Just this past week, I ran a series of races that comprised The Dopey Challenge in Walt Disney World. For those of you who don't know, the Dopey Challenge is four races from Thursday to Sunday, comprising of a 5K on Thursday, a 10K on Friday, a half marathon on Saturday, and then topped off with a marathon on Sunday.

Sounds crazy? It is!

I decided to do the Dopey Challenge even though I was already registered for the Chicago Marathon in October and the California International Marathon in December. My PT was concerned that I might be doing too much running, but my training for Chicago and CIM made my training for Dopey all that much easier.

Between CIM and Dopey I concentrated more on strength training rather than running. Even though I kept my miles up, I made sure I got in my squats and lunges and hydrants and clamshells and hitting the standing hip abductor machine at the gym, amonsgt other lower body and core things.

My strategy was easy: Run the first three races really easy, and then run the first half of the marathon easy as well. Just finish, and remember not to get carried away and run too hard during any of the races. Take my smartphone with me and take pics of anything I found neat or interesting, to help me keep my pace down and not get carried away. Also, enforced walking breaks at every mile marker, whethere I felt like walking or not.

First Race: Thursday's 5K

I had gotten a hotel room close to the start line of all of the races, only to learn that we weren't allowed to walk to the start. We were required to take shuttle transportation. What the heck. It cut down on walking. I took one of the earlier shuttles only to find out that I had gotten there far too early; More than an hour before they started herding us to the corrals. To kill time, I stood in line to get a picture with Pluto before we were finally directed to the starting area. The weather was clear and it was even warm, despite the fact that it was still dark out.

There were a lot of people lined up for this race. I was in corral D. Virtually everyone there was wearing a Dopey bib. I saw very few people who were just running the 5K.

Keeping my promise, I ran a very slow, training pace run. The course basically took us from the staging area and around Epcot. Yes, the Epcot Lake is just under a 5K as it turns out! So if you've been there you've no doubt walked at least a 5K. I was tempted to stop and get a pic taken with a character, but I didn't stop until I saw a pair of vikings with a very short line.

It was just a quick run round Epcot's shops, restaurants, and attractions.

The sun had barely risen by the time I was finished. I had run the race so easily I hadn't even broken a sweat.

Second Race: Friday's 10K

I took a later shuttle to get out to the 10K, which started half an hour earlier than the 5K. Running twice as long this day, I ran at pretty much the same pace as the day before.

At the start line I saw a few more non-Dopey runners, runners who had on 10K bibs, than I did the previous day.

The 10K course started out on an open road. It was one of the roads within the vast confines of the Walt Disney World Empire. (If you're not familiar with the layout and/or never been there, it's fairly spread out between the four parks and various facilities. You basically have to drive to get to the separate parks) I started off easy, the same pace I had run at the 5K. a few jack rabbits zipped past me, and I wondered what their hurry was.

It was much colder than the day before, noticeably so. It didn't take long for it to warm up, however. This race had a lot more whimsy than the 5K. I stopped for a couple of photo ops, once with the Incredibles, and I saw the Viking guys again, only this time there were a few more. I also paused to take pictures of the rising sunset, and also chatted with a spectator with a sign that said "You Look Skinny." I also stopped to get a picture with the Canadian contingent over by the O' Canada exhibit. (Had to. MY gal's Canadian!)

I also got into a lot more conversations with runners. The keyword for this run was casual. Asides from a few Hanz n' Franzers who bursted out of the gate, everyone was taking it easy, and having a chat with a fellow runner was gladly accepted. I got advice from one woman who advised keeping a slow and steady pace. Already done!

The roadway led back to the Epcot course we had run yesterday. It then came out to the Boardwalk, a stretch of shops and hotels around yet another lake. This area was just by my hotel. A wind back to Epcot and we were done.

I felt really good. I had kept my word and kept myself at good and easy paces, only momentarily taking off a few times, but always remembering to run easy.

But my good mood didn't last long...

Pics!

For this race I wore a 49ers hat, a Berkeley Half Marathon Shirt, and a pair of Stephen Curry socks!

I told them this would be my "Game of Thrones" pic! :)

Had to stop and take a picture of the sunrise at Epcot!

I'm not even making this up: This was the line to get a picture with Minnie Mouse before the 10K race started!

The 10K had more Vikings! I wore my Game Changer Fitness shirt for this race! :D

Race Report - The California International Marathon

2016-12-07T17:20:57Z

Last Sunday I ran the California International Marathon. It was my 7th ever CIM and my 20th Marathon overall.

The main reason I chose to run this December Marathon is because I'm working on my legacy status. It was my sixth CIM in a row, and I want to keep the streak going. Also it's a fairly easy course. I've PR'd twice on this course!

This year myself and ten thousand of my closest running friends totally lucked out because the weather was so good. Not very cold and a nice, cool temperature the entire way. I was one of the waterlogged runners who experienced the monsoon-like conditions of 2012, and nearly froze to death during the cold, cold snap of 2013.

I had not trained too strenuously for this marathon since I had run the Chicago Marathon a mere two months prior. I was curious as to how I would handle this marathon since I had held back on training very hard.

I took the first part of the course easy. I had not decided if I was going to try and make this run a PR attempt until after I warmed up and had run for a few miles to see how I was doing. During the first eight miles I kept pacing myself ahead of a five hour pace group, partially because I wanted to keep a good pace, but mostly because I felt they were running too slowly.

I eventually found myself trying to stay ahead of the 5:23 pace group, since I was forced to take a porta-potty stop with a reeeeally long line, and the runners in front of me were apparently washing their hair or doing their nails or something really time-consuming inside those plastic bathrooms. (Seriously, what was taking them so long?) I kept running at an even yet decent pace.

That's when I started hitting the wall. Shortly before the halfway point I started running out of gas. Physically I felt fine. No stress or strain on my joints, but my energy was starting to wane. I hoped it was just a temporary lull.

After the halfway point I was really starting to drag. I downed a few electrolytes at the aid stations and started chugging my gel shots, trying to get my energy up. But it was no use. Between mile 17 and 18 I was so wrung out I momentarily thought about dropping out of the race. I simply felt like collapsing onto the ground.

Only once before have I hit the wall early in a marathon, and that was years ago at the Oakland Marathon. (Almost dropped out at mile 18 because I was so woozy.) Usually when a marathon performance of mine gets hampered it's because of a blister, or a tightening or suddenly sore joint. Note this time. I was outta gas.

At the next aid station they had bananas and pretzels and butter cookies. Throwing caution to the wind I downed a couple of butter cookies and I perked up significantly. I was still running ragged, but I felt that I could finish the marathon. I accepted many snacks along the way: Twizzlers, crackers, oranges, and more cookies. Food was really picking me up, even though I still had to run/walk the last eight miles of the race.

My time was terrible, but I managed to finish. I really don't know why I hit the wall so early and so hard. At Chicago just a few months before I never hit the wall, not even once for the entire race! Clearly I had not fueled myself properly. But then again, I had to wonder: Too many marathons too close together? Training too hard? Not training hard enough? Should I have devoured a pizza the night before instead of a bowl of pasta?

In any case, I felt like hell and I felt like just laying down on the road between miles 17 and 18, but instead I powered through and finished yet another marathon. Number 20. Hopefully I can get twenty more in over the next few years!

When I checked into Facebook while I was in the pre-race warming tent, one of the check-in options was Folsom State Prison, so I chose that one and wrote "It's true! Several thousand lunatics have escaped, and are all running towards Sacramento!"

Thee medal for this race. It is way cool!

Hilary Can Still Be President - No, Really!

2016-11-10T21:17:00Z

It's a longshot, it's a Hail Mary, but it still needs to be done...

https://www.change.org/p/electoral-college-electors-electoral-college-make-hillary-clinton-president-on-december-19

Race Report - The Chicago Marathon

2016-10-12T23:06:23Z

Last Sunday I ran the Chicago Marathon. It was my first time ever in Chicago, my 3rd marathon outside of California, and my 19th Marathon overall.

They call Chicago the Windy City, but personally I never found it especially windy. (But then again, I was there in the mild month of October.) And Marathon day was no exception. The day was clear and cool with a few clouds. I made it, along with the rest of the mob, early enough to particiapte on my corral's eight AM start. The thing is, around eight o'clock my corral wasn't anywhere near the start line. It would be a little more than an extra half hour before I finally crossed the line with my herd.

The day before at the Marathon Expo I attended a Runner's World forum, and one of the running coaches recommended running the first ten miles as one would a training run, so you could spare yourself for the latter part. I decided to follow that advice. It was also ideal since my PT Jessica Greaux, (Of Innersport in Berkeley,) had been coaching my running, and I paid a lot of attention to my gait and cadence as I tried to pedal my feet and move the ground underneath me, rather than slapping my feet on top of it.

The first few miles were just fine. Many runners passed me up as I tried to pay attention to my pace and not get carried away. It wasn't long before we hit our first water stop. I walked through each and every water stop on the course, and kept running otherwise.

By mile four I felt I had hit a good stride. We had already passed many cheering supporters and lots of rowdy Cubs fans. (I was tempted to yell out "Giants in five!", but I didn't have the heart.) We curled around downtown a few times, and one part of the metal bridges over the river were covered with a thick, felt material, propbably because of the gaps in the grating. It felt really nice on my feet, and I wondered out loud to a fellow runner why couldn't the whole course be covered with that stuff.

There is one weird thing about Chicago: My GPS kept getting all funky. My normally reliable Android did have some problems locking onto a GPS signal. And my Garmin has been one of the most reliable pieces of technology I ever owned, but when it was trying to measure my pace it was all over the map. At times it reported me as running five minute miles, and at other times twenty two minute miles. (Eep.) I am honestly not that fast or slow. Occasionally it would report credible pace, but it frequently dropped out with one of those extremes.

The weather remained cool, with nice breezes wafting by. As the Sun got higher, I braced myself for warmer temperatures. Even though it was my first visit to the city, I've heard plenty of times about how Chicago Indian Summers have baked many a' marathoner. But by mile eight it was still quite cool.

Even though I had pledged to hold back until mile ten, I ended up hitting the jets and pushing it a little more by mile eight. I just couldn't take it anymore. I tried to keep a good, steady pace throughout, only taking walking breaks at water stops, though this marathon had a lot of water stops!

By the halfway mark I still felt good and strong. It was at the halfway point that I started seeing people slowing down. The weather was still mild and cool, but many people were starting to walk. After a few more miles, some of those runners were walking with hands on hips, or trying to stretch themselves out. It was all too familiar, the signs of hitting the wall. I know how it feels, though by mile sixteen I had not hit the wall.

Mile sixteen is when I strapped on the iPod. Time to bust out the tunes! My sore-ish ankle and slightly tight IT bands had not bothered me at all so far. In fact, they felt a little better. The Sun had still not gotten too warm, and I was still maintaining a good pace.

For the next four miles I started passing people up. By mile twenty all I did was pass people. Holding myself back was paying off. I did feel something of a lull in my body after mile 22, and I was wondering if I was starting to hit the wall, but a few cups of Gatorade and one gel shot later I was cadencing along as before. I ran the rest of my race at pretty much the same pace I had started out with. My time was not at all impressive, (Especially because of excess early porta-potty stops, AKA I had over-hydrated,) but I ran the whole race and kept up my pace, running this as a training run for my next marathon, which is coming up in just a few months.

On the course: Dancing dinosaur. A short woman pushing a standard baby stroller. (Tried to talk to her, but she replied in a thick Chinese accent "No good English.") One fire fighter in full fire fighting gear. One Roman Emperor. A couple of Wonder women. A few fellow Ragnarians. Can-can dancing ladies on a stage. (Several of the dancers had beards.) Two runners in striped prison outfits. Best sign on the course: "After the marathon you'll look like this"; Two arrows on the sign pointed to sleeping dogs on the ground.

My Lost Cat Jadzia - Time to start saying Goodbye...

2016-10-01T18:16:20Z

On the evening of August 4th, nearly two months ago, my cat Jadzia went out of the bedroom window to go catting around, as she had so many times during her more than ten years of life, only this time she never returned.

Since the night she inexplicably disappeared I have searched my house and the surrounding area very thoroughly. I have been through ever corner and crevice in the attic and the basement. I searched the surrounding area, combed through the adjacent creek bed, and even scoured a vacant lot nearby after crawling under a chainlink fence. I have wallpapered the neighborhood with lost cat signs, visited all of the East Bay shelters several times, put up lost cat notices on online neighborhood bulletin boards and visited the local vets. I'm still doing that, but I'm now also checking the local pet rescues, since one of them might have picked her up if she had been brought to a shelter shortly after she disappeared.

It's been less than a year since we lost her brother Bashir, who was struck and killed by a car. Now she is gone.

It is maddening. If she had been badly injured by a car or a wild animal, I suspect I would've found her body by now. She has a chip, so if she were brought to a shelter or a vet they should've been able to identify her. There we some recent incidences of coyotes killing cats in the area, but in all of those cases remains were found. Still, the possibility exists that she may have been killed by a wild animal or a car, and she was so badly mangled that she was never recovered. Or she may be in someone's home, someone who thought she was a stray, but in that case that someone should've seen the lost cat signs.

There is the possibility she was taken to a shelter, and maybe she has been adopted. I doubt she was quickly euthanized, unless she was badly hurt, but in those cases they should've found the chip. I've been told that there are incidences where a chipped animals was not identified with a scan because someone did a quick wave through and just didn't find it. But that's also unlikely.

The worst part of all of this is the not knowing. Has she gone over the Rainbow Bridge? Or is she curled up and purring in someone's lap? I just want to know. I hope and pray that someone else has her and that she's okay, getting fed and having a nice warm place to sleep. But even if that's not the case I still want to know what happened to her.

At this point I'm not optimistic. I am beginning to doubt that I'll ever find out, that she's probably gone for good. I have heard about lost cats coming back after weeks or months, or even years, but she never strayed far from the house.

I will still check in on the shelters, and I'll put up the last of the lost pet signs, even though some that were put up back in early August are still up. In the meantime, I will perform a ritual I had been putting off: I have her brother Bashir's ashes, and I have always been meaning to spread some of them in two of his favorite places: In the creek bed where he liked to hang out, and on the large tree stump not too far from there where he liked to survey his kingdom. I have not fully gotten over Bashir's loss. I even had a dream about him the other night. I was in the creek bed, and I could hear his distinctive meow, even though I couldn't see him. Now, with his sister gone, I believe it's finally time to go through with that ritual. Who knows? Maybe it will summon her return.

In any case, my upcoming Bashir ritual is also to say goodbye to Jadzia as as well as to him. She may yet still return, but just in case, I want to start to say goodbye so I can reconcile myself with the most likely outcome: That she is gone for good, and that she's never coming back.

This is a very Jadzia picture
of Jadzia. Always serious
and dignified

Jadzia and her brother Bashir.
Jadzia was never the same after
she lost her brother last year.

How to Talk to a Woman Who is Commanding a Space Station capable of Destroying a Planet

2016-08-31T16:29:34Z

These days, many women walk around playing with a Star Destroyer or coordinates to a wormhole and are often commanding a massive intergalactic space station that is capable of destroying a planet at the same time.

Yet, that doesn’t mean you can’t talk to them.

Of course, not all women are open to being approached because not all women are single and looking.

However, if a woman commanding a space station capable of destroying a planet is single and hoping to meet a boyfriend (or even a new lover), she will usually be happy to take her eyes off of the station's command center screen or leave stellar cartography to give you an opportunity to create a spark with her.

What to Do to Get Her Attention

1. Position your spaceship in front of her space station. (With 1,000 to 15,000 kilometers between you).

2. Have a confident, easy-going smile.

3. If she hasn’t already trained her station's sensors on you, simply get her attention with a static warp shell. Fluctuate your static warp shell in her direct line of station sensors or patrol ships so she can see it and say, “Hey, how’s it going?” She most likely won’t hear you say that, (In space no one can hear you say “Hey, how’s it going?”,) but it’s just a way of showing her that you’re trying to talk to her.

4. When she opens hailing frequencies and gives you her attention, smile, point to her exhaust ports and confidently ask, “Can you lower your shields for a minute?” as you lower your shields, so she fully understands what you mean.

If she doesn’t understand that you want her to briefly lower her shields, simply gesture that you want to talk to her by pointing back and forth at the numerous interstellar fighters that have undoubtedly been launched by now from the station. Say, “I want to talk to you for a minute.”

In most cases, you won’t have to go to that extreme because most women are polite, but some women are shy and will be hesitant about lowering their shields and deactivating station perimeter defenses initially.

Of course, if you notice that she doesn’t want to call off her fleet of Star Destroyers and doesn’t seem interested in talking to you at all, just respect that and try to calculate the coordinates for hyper speed without trying to talk to her any further.

5. When she opens a channel to talk to you, you might want to then do what we call “Acknowledging the Awkwardness” by quickly mentioning something about the potential awkwardness of the moment (see the conversation example below), to demonstrate you understand that a man and a woman talking to each other in this way isn’t the most common of experiences for either party.

For example, in an intergalactic corridor or near a highly localized distortion of the space-time conitinuum:

You: [Smile in a friendly, confident manner] :) Hey – I know it’s not normal for people to talk to someone commanding a space station the size of a small moon, but I was walking along and saw you and thought – wow, she’s hot, I have to come over and say hi. I’m Dan, what’s your name?

Woman: Sith Lord Jessica, Destroyer of Worlds.

You: [Add in some humor to get her smiling and create a spark between you] Cool…nice to meet you Jessica, Destroyer of Worlds. I don’t normally talk to girls with massive space stations with hundreds of thousands of storm troopers, but your big black helmet and skull emblem were just calling out to me.

Woman: [Possibly smiling or laughing or waving her hands to black clad security guards with blasters].

You: [If you’re in orbit of a class M planet or near Deep Space Nine, let her know that you have something else to do besides talk to her, so she understands that you’re not going to stand there scanning her station's defensive capabilities for 30 minutes] Anyway, I’m just out doing a bit of pergium mining at the moment. How about you?

If it’s clear that she’s interested in talking to you and has not locked onto your craft with a tractor beam, keep the conversation going and, if she’s not training the Concave Dish Composite Beam Superlaser at a hapless planet at that moment, transport over to her station and have a chat for a while before getting her sector coordinates and parting ways.

Smacked in the Face by Fairy Wings: What I Learned at the Tinkerbell Running Festival

2016-05-24T19:03:52Z

Earlier this month I ran the Tinkerbell Half Marathon. Actually I did the Pixie Dust Challenge, which was the 10K on Saturday and the half marathon on Sunday. I was going to write a regular race report, as I usually do with big races, but I'm prompted to write this instead.

I am a "regular" race runner. I run on average three marathons a year, having run my first in 2009, and I've run so many half marathons, 10Ks, and 5Ks that I've literally lost count. I save all of my race bibs, and I've run out of medal hangers, yet again.

I knew about Disney races but wasn't really prompted to try one out until my friend Maire convinced me to try one out last year, when I ran the Tinkerbell Half Marathon in 2015.

Most of my footraces are of the conventional variety: My first Marathon was the San Francisco Marathon. Since then I've almost been averaging one race a month, and I have many running festivals I regularly run: Oakland Running Festival, SF Marathon, (Either the full or half marathon,) The Berkeley Half, The California International Marathon...

Not that I've only run conventional races. Another friend got me hooked on Ragnar Relays, (Which is a long distance relay race you should definitely look into, especially you Disney runners,) and the very first run I ever ran was the infamous Bay to Breakers in San Francisco.

But the 2015 Tinkerbell Half was a new experience for me. It was the most laid back and funnest fun run I've ever participated in. Previously, before running it for the first time, I had made a PR attempt at the Oakland Running Festival's half marathon, where I fell just three minutes shy of my 2:02 PR. (Still trying for a sub two half!) It was a race that I grinded out along with a lot of other Hanz and Franz type runners who were also trying for their personal bests. When I ran Tinkerbell, I really didn't care about my pace. And by that I mean I truly didn't care about my pace. Even during other fun runs like Ragnar Relays I'm tripping on my velocity. During my first Tinkerbell Half was surrounded by tutus and fairy wings and all kinds of costumes and a large group of people just taking it easy. The characters and the bands and just the camaraderie was amazing.

And I knew I wasn't around a usual group of runners. Of course this race had people who wanted to run well and many were thinking about PRs, but it wasn't so apparent as the usual races. It wasn't the teeth-grinding, damn-the-IT-bands charge that I am more used to during regular foot races.

I've rarely seen so many costumes at a race. Oftentimes it was just a gratuitous set of fairy wings and a tutu, but there were plenty of more elaborate getups. And it was also a lot more emotional. For many Tinkerbell runners the race was a big personal deal. I saw people becoming overwhelmed at the finish line, some weeping, others hugging their families, and others just dazed by a mixture of exhaustion, adrenaline, and happiness. After the race, and I mean way past the finish line when we were in the park, people not only were wearing their race shirts, but even wore their medals for the entire day. That's something I've never seen any runner do after a non-Disney race. (On my flight back to the Bay Area right after the last Tinkerbell Half two women were still wearing their medals on my plane, all the way home!) This kind of behavior is something many runners believe only a complete dork would do, but these runners were shining with pride, and they wanted everyone to know it.

It's not as if all Tinkerbellers and Disney racers are strangers to racing. Far from it. Some Disney running fanatics have been known to run enough half marathons in a short enough time to qualify for the Half Fanatics running club. And it's not all Pixie Dust and smiles all of the time. Emotions run high, and sometimes there are a few ugly scenes when someone's fairy wings won't stop smacking the runner behind them, and the fight for limited race merchandise can get nasty. But overall it's mostly great positive vibes and runners support, more so than in many other races.

Experiencing this race let me know where myself, and many other runners I know, have put ourselves. I can admit it: Sometimes I get jaded. I run so many races I've been known to approach them with a lackadaisical attitude. "Eh, it's just a half," I've been known to say. "I guess a 3:30 is okay for a marathon," said one runner friend of mine. (Said with shoulder-shrug.) I'm not a particularly fast runner, and I look more like the "Dad-bod" kinda guy then Ryan Hall, but even so running races can become a routine, and when that happens myself and many other runners can lose some perspective on what we're doing. The distances we run are extreme physical feats. The emotions we should be feeling when running with a herd of flying runners are suppressed or dulled by repetition. What happened to the fun? What happened to the "Holy crap, I just ran thirteen miles???" Why not laugh, cry, exult at the finish line? Why not dare to be a dork and wear your medal all day? When I see a chubby middle-aged woman in fairy wings and a big frilly tutu become overwhelmed after she's just completed her first ever half marathon it tells me that I've lost some perspective on why I started running in the first place. And that's something I want to share, not only with my running friends, but also all of my fitness geek friends for whom intense physical feats have become as commonplace as making the bed or washing the dishes.

Running a half marathon is a big deal. It's a physical feat that will tax even the no-body fat super ripped runners for whom running has become a routine. It is a physical feat that can be underestimated, not just physically, but also emotionally. And if you've lost that, sign up for a Disney race and slow down to commune with a bunch of regular gals and guys in sparkle skirts and pirate hats, running a heart-pounding half marathon that's a really big deal for them. Do it even if those wings smack you in the face from time to time.

Race Report - So Cal Ragnar 2016 - Getting Knocked Out in Irvine

2016-04-05T14:50:32Z

Last weekend I ran on my friend Kiki's long-distance relay team Running C2C at the So Cal Ragnar Relay. It was my 6th ever So Cal Ragnar and my 15th Ragnar Relay.

For those of you not familiar with a Ragnar Relay: The Ragnar Relay is a long-distance relay race a la' Hood to Coast. The average team has 12 runners, and the course is around 200 miles long. Each runner runs three legs of 3 to 9 miles, and the race takes an average of 30 hours to complete. The runners get from exchange to exchange via two passeneger vans. While one van's runners are running, the other van is resting and trying to get some sleep. For more info, check out this link.

I was in van two with my intrepid Captain Kiki, (third time I've been on one of her teams,) and her friends John, (A veterinarian who happens to be the vet for Kiki's pibble Casper,) thee epic Wendi, a stalwart runner who did more than her fair share of running, (And is also a fancy semaphor flag waver,) and Angela, a soon-to-be sailor for thee US Navy! We were missing one runner who had to drop out at the last minute, so we had extra legs to cover. Such is life on the Ragnar trail!

Grind and Punishment: Running the extra Long Leg and Murphy's Law

My first leg was the iron leg, a 12.1 mile leg through Irvine, the longest leg of the entire So Cal Ragnar. I had run this leg before, at last year's So Cal Ragnar. Usually I don't stress about my pace during Ragnar Relays, but for this first run I had a mission: Kill it! I had a target time of running this leg in under two hours.

I felt really good right before the run. We had eaten breakfast hours ago, shortly after the first van had started their runs. I was a little nervous about a slightly sore left shin, but I mostly attributed that to nerves.

I started out with an easy pace so I could finish strong. The weather was good, nice and sunny, but not too hot. A cool breeze even kicked up now and again. Even though I was running easy, I was hitting, and sometimes even exceeding, my target pace. To emphasize just how much I wanted to kill this run, I had brought my Garmin GPS tracker with me, which is something I've never done on a Ragnar run before.

And then my mission got completely derailed.

Right about the 3.5 mile mark, it hit me all at once. I had felt really good right up until this point. I suddenly felt very sick, sick enough to make me slow down and then stop, as I realized that my morning's breakfast was going to make a reappearance.

Walking over to the side of the road and propping myself up against a tree, I totally lost my lunch, which was actually the breakfast I had eaten that morning. For the next few minutes every passing runner was asking me if I needed help when they saw me holding myself up by clinging to a tree. I told them yeah, I'm okay, but I was staggering around, nauseous and shaking. I have no idea what happened, if I had a bug that just decided to manifest itself or if it was something I had eaten or what.

After involuntarily emptying my stomach and taking a walking break, I resumed running, albeit at a much slower pace. I was very dehydrated and felt washed out. I had hit the wall and then some. I managed to complete the run, but I was never able to come close to running near my target pace. I ended up running for a much longer time than I had planned, putting my team way behind our pace schedule.

Back in the van I continued to hydrate, and tried to eat some bland food to get my energy back so I could complete my second run, and it seemed as if my sudden and acute GI problem might have been a temporary bump in my running road. By the time my next run rolled around in the evening, I felt much better. I wasn't sure how I would handle my second leg, but it was only a 3.5 mile run.

I started out all right, but after the first mile I had to take a walking break. I started up my run again but then quickly slowed back to a walk. I was dehydrated and hitting the wall hard. Nearing mile two I was starting to feel woozy. That's when I messaged my Captain and asked her to have the van come pick me up. Fatigue is one thing, but when you start actually getting dizzy, that's when you have to stop.

My PT has always told me to listen to my body. But I don't always follow that advice, especially when it comes to races. I've run marathons on sore heels and tight IT bands. I've run races with headcolds and even bothersome GI problems, and rarely have I DNF'd a race. Yeah, I have DNF'd a couple of times due to physical injuries that popped up, but this was different. I was part of a relay team. We were already short one runner, and now I was coming out of the game and due to acute GI problems rather than a strained calf or a twisted ankle.

Despite my pride and my sense of commitment, I realized I had to listen to my body and I told my team captain that there was no way I could run my next leg which was more than nine miles long. I was not looking forward to being a lame duck runner, and I didn't enjoy having to dump those extra miles onto a group of already over-burdened runners, but my teammates rose to the challenge, and not only filled in for the missing runner, but ran the miles for my last leg as well. Every last teammate, Kiki, John, Wendi and Angela, pulled out the stops and became iron runners. At no time did my teammates ever make me think I was letting them down and faking out on a hard run. Everyone in my van reassured me that I was doing the right thing, and that made my decision so much easier to bear. And I even had a lot of fun despite not getting another chance to run, getting to know my teammates, goofing around during van stops, hollering and encouraging runners through the bullhorn, (Yes we had a bullhorn,) and enjoying the sunny weather and So Cal coastline.

We finished up that evening, and I participated in the last group run, running across the finish line with Captian Kiki. My 15th Ragnar was complete!

Captain Kiki talking to runners before our team started

Our Van Two driver with a message about his wife on his t-shirt

I woke up next to the beach at Torrey Pines, a quick cat nap at one of the major exchanges.

One of my favorite pictures from this Ragnar: When I ran into my friend Zandra
at the starting line. (A teammate from my last Napa Valley Ragnar. She was
running on another team.)

Captain Kiki takes off at an exchange!

Iron Runner Angela running my third leg. I owe her a coke! (At least...)

Yes, running a Ragnar is tough! From left to right: Wendi, John, and Captain Kiki

The window of our van. True teamwork indeed!

Race Report: Taking it Easy at the 2016 Los Angeles Marathon

2016-02-16T23:07:29Z

Last Sunday I ran the LA Marathon. It was my first LA Marathon and my 18th marathon overall.

I planned to run this marathon as a casual fun run. I had attempted a new PR back in December at the CIM, but an unexpected on-course injury derailed that plan. (Basically I developed a shin splint on steroids halfway through the CIM that slowed me down considerably.)

Between CIM and LA I sent most of my time recuperating and doing light runs while I healed up. Even though I had planned to take it easy on this marathon, the longest run I managed to get in between CIM and LA was a fifteen miler three weeks before race day. Light training for sure.

Many of my friends had already run LA. I heard horror stories about ninety degree weather and the infamous monsoon year when it heavily rained the entire time. It didn't help my trepidation when I received a weather alert from the LA Marathon. Turns out they were warning us about possible 80 degree heat late in the race. Meh. Not that scary if you ask me.

I knew on race morning that it was going to be an unusual marathon for me. For this race, I splurged on a hotel room at the Biltmore in downtown LA, rather than go for cheaper lodgings that I usually got to keep the price of the race down. I don't know if it was the nice digs or just being exahusted from a busy week, but I actually got in a good night's sleep. The hardest part of every marathon for me has always been trying to get sleep the night before. I can honestly say that this time that was not the case!

The race started at Dodgers Stadium. We were allowed to wander around certain parts of the stadium before the race. I wouldn't say the weather was cool before the race, I'd actually say it was cold! A good sign weather-wise.

Ther field was crowded, but I didn't mind. I specifically let myself get blocked off by slower runners so I could keep my pace down. My PT had recommended walking breaks every ten mintutes, so I decided on walking breaks at every mile. The first few miles were easy, and the traffic jam wasn't too bad. I felt really good through the first five miles. I didn't have any problems with my shin, and the weather stayed nice and cool.

The crowd support was great. Many people were out, handing out water, handing out Gatorade, and handing out pieces of fruit and candy. There were plenty of musicians, from lone drummers and guitarists, to singers and entire bands and dancing lineups.

I realized only halfway through the race that I and forgotten to put on sunscreen. Fortunately many spectators and businesses were handing out small bottles of sunscreen, so I was able to put some on Mid-race, lessening my chances of getting an infamous So Cal sunburn.

Then something very odd happened. I got a distinct pain on the bottom of my right foot, near my toes. If there's something that never happens to me during runs, even marathons, it's blisters. And this one was a doozy. At first I thought maybe my running sock had bunched up. Nope. Stopping to remove my shoe and sock, there it was: A big fat blister.

That blister slowed me up and how. I could run maybe a mile before I had to take a walking break, and that was only if I gritted it out. Most of my running spurts were a half or three quarters of a mile before taking another one to two minute walking break. Ergo the last half of my marathon run was hampered quite a bit, which was a drag. I had plenty of energy from having had taken it so easy on the first half of the course.

Towards the end, the weather did get warmer, but only just so. And the wind kept kicking up. It hovered between warm and hot, but never really got unbearably hot. Despite my nasty blister, I ran out the last two miles of the race. Pain be damned! Probably the only really hard running I did during the entire course.

My time was atrocious, and my right foot ached like hell, but it was truly a la-dee-da kind of race, run at a leisurely pace, with an easy course and great weather and awesome fan support. I'm thinking another LA Marathon is on my list for next year!

My friend, My Wife, My Teacher...

2016-02-02T21:53:22Z

Below is the English translation of this entry which I posted yesterday in my German Livejournal superigel.

Many have asked me "Why have you learned German?"

I have several reasons: Because I wanted to learn a foreign language, because I'm interested in German culture, especially German music. But I always answered "My first German teacher was my ex-wife."

My ex-wife was Doris Kyburz. Last Friday Doris passed away. She was not young, a few years older than me, but she was too young to die. Last week she injured her ankle and a bloot clot formed. This blood clot made its way to her heart and she had a heart attack.

German was Doris' native language. But she wasn't German. She was Swiss. That means extra German!

Doris taught me German. I have also taken classes at the Goethe Institut and also at Language Schools in Germany, but she was the best teacher I ever had. She was mostly nice, occasionally mean, but always strict. I am proud that I have learned this language. It's true that too many Americans can't speak a foreign laguage.

My life really changed because of her. My first trip to Continental Europe was my trip with her to Switzerland. No, I can't speak Swiss German. When I went to Switzerland my German was good. Not so good as it is now, but not bad. Nevertheless I could barely understand anyone. Chuchichäschtli? Wat??? But Switzerland is a beautiful counrty. Zurich and Lugano and a train through the Mountains and Doris' wonderful family. Awesome!

After our divorce I made three language trips to Germany. Two to Berlin and one to Munich. Doris and I remained friends, but I kept going with my German adventure by myself. I love Berlin. I have friends in Berlin now. And I have made friends with many new people in my German conversation group.

Everyone is impressed when I talk about Doris. She had lived in Tokyo. She was a German professor at a University. She studied martial arts. She could speak six languages. (Seven if you include Latin!)

She was not a typical woman for me. Most of the women I've gone out with had tattoos, funny looking hair, and most were some sort of artist. (Painters, dancers, musicians...) Wild and hot tempered and oftentimes besotted. (As is often the case with bohemian types.) Doris was not at all like my past girlfriends. My life as a young man was wild and chaotic, ergo so were my relationships. My relationship with Doris marked a turning point in my life.

My German is a bit rusty. I have negelected this blog. (The superigel blog that is.) I have not taken a class in a long time. But I didn't totally give up. I still have my German conversation group. We meet twice a month so I can practice my German. I still read German books and see German movies. (Berlin and Beyond Film Festival!) Maybe my German is a little strange to Native German speakers, and perhaps this entry has a few mistakes here and there. Nevertheless I keep learning German. Especially now. I will really try to improve my German. I'll do that for Doris.

Goodbye my dear Doris. Until next time, at that Language school in the sky.

I'm a better man, because you've been part of my life.

Yes, Doris was also a biker chick!

jvmatucha @ 2016-01-11T12:52:00

2016-01-11T20:52:16Z

I saw Bowie's Serious Moonlight tour. It was the best big concert I ever saw. And what made it extra special was not just Bowie and all of the incredible musicians he brought along with him, but the audience as well. Everyone from clueless preppy peckerwoods to incomprehensible freaks from hell and everyone in between. His influence was universal, breaking through so many cultural barriers.

My Review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (SPOILERS!!)

2015-12-31T00:02:34Z

Leseee...

Movie starts off with Empire attacking rebels.

Attack on rebels introduces us to powerful black clad guy with super powers via The Force.

Droid escapes with vital information that they have to deliver to good guys.

Bad guys look for droid.

Droid finds seemingly insignificant desert dweller who scrapes out a living by fiddling with space junk.

Desert dweller meets iconic and legendary old guy.

Old guy takes desert dweller to a bar full of all kinds of aliens.

Old wise person tells desert dweller that they have a gift while simultaneously giving them a light saber that had a previous owner.

Oh yeah, there's this giant massive weapon that can destroy planets.

Old iconic guy sabatoge big weapon thingy that can destroy planets.

Black clad evil Force guy kills iconic old guy.

Desert dweller yells "Noooooooo!"

Rebels attack big giant planet killer weapon when they discover one of its weaknesses.

Big giant weapon thingy that can destroy planets is destroyed by rebels and everyone yells "yay!"

SOUND FAMILIAR???

I WONDER WHERE THEY CAME UP WITH THIS STORY??? :P :P :P :P :P

Unexpected Guest

2015-12-21T07:34:56Z

Heard a noise in the basement on a cold and raining night. Went down to invetigate. Realized that a door was left ajar, and I found a skunk curling itself up under a pile of tarps and work clothes.

The skunk looked up at me, pointing his nose at me. He did not fluff up his tail, and he didn't act aggresively.

And I just didn't have the heart to chase him outside, because it was so cold and wet ouside.

So skunk gets to sleep in the basement tonight. So sue me.

(It's also the same skunk that comes around trying to get me to feed it and let it in the house.)

Race Report: Not my Best Day at the California International Marathon. (But I still finished...)

2015-12-08T17:27:08Z

This past Sunday I ran the California International Marathon. It was my 6th completed CIM and my 17th Marathon since 2009.

The CIM is a nice, flat and quick course from the city of Folsom to Sacramento in Northern California.

I had planned on making this marathon a possible PR attempt, especially since the CIM is a pretty easy course that I've already PR'd on twice. I carefully planned out my training schedule earlier this year, and ran the San Francisco Marathon last July as a training marathon. But things didn't turn out the way I had planned.

A few months before CIM I came down with tight IT bands. I used to have IT band problems, but many years ago. I haven't had any problems like this for quite some time. Suddenly an old running malady popped up from out of the blue. It got bad enough that I had to scale my training back, including my cross training. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the weekend before CIM I came down with a fairly bad headcold, an illness that I was not completely over by the time the CIM rolled around.

The weather wasn't bad. Temperature-wise we really lucked out. Usually it's freezing cold for this race, but this time it was pretty comfortable. Rain had also been forecast for the start, but it only rained intermittently and the rainfall was pretty light.

But the night before this marathon was semi-disaster. I had my restaurant picked out for my pre-marathon carb load dinner, a nice pizza and pasta joint within walking disatnce of my hotel. But when I got there, I was informed that they were, get this, out of pasta. ANY kind of pasta! (WAT??? How the $#%^@! does a pasta restaurant run out of pasta???) I didn't want to load up on pizza, since that would be too heavy, so I drove three miles to the next closest restaurant that specialized in pasta. That ended up making me have dinner an hour and a half later than I had planned.

Which brought up some GI issues, not only because I eaten later than planned, but also because I switched restaurants. I'll spare you the TMI details, but it did make me lose some sleep, and I ended up hydrating far more than I wanted to, resulting in four porta-potty stops within the first eight miles. Talk about putting a crimp in my pace!

Around mile ten I was relieved to realize didn't have to pee every five minutes anymore, and I felt I was on a decent pace. But my decent pace didn't last long. Around mile 13 I got what felt like a shin splint in my left shin. This was quite distressing, because I haven't had shin splints in years! Not one of my usual injuries. After a few more miles it started to hurt just enough to make me think that maybe I should DNF, but I thought about the other two times I toughed out minor injuries to complete marathons. (SF in 2009 and Long beach in 2011.)

I made two stops at medical tents to get my shin taped up. The tape made it feel much better, and after a few more miles of running and walking breaks, it felt good enough to run on. I cranked up the MP3 player and ran out the last eight miles of the course, albeit at a much slower pace than I was used to.

My finish time was embarrassing, one of my slowest marathons ever. I only thought about DNFing for a moment, but instead I stuck it out. Because even though I never had a snowball's chance in hell of trying out for a PR, I still wanted to just finish and get my medal, and put another marathon notch on my medal hangar despite a lingering headcold, GI problems, a gamey shin, and just generally feeling like crap.

The Next Great 'Merican Novel? Shameless self promotion!

2015-11-03T20:20:55Z

I published a book! Well, self published a book...

Check it out!

It's the harrowing story of two drug addicts, one who's trying to get clean and sober, and another who's sinking deeper and deeper into her addiction. It's ironic how similar the two worlds can be, with contacts and code words and covert meetings with fellow addicts, whether they're trying to get loaded or trying to stay off of the stuff.

I just put this out via Amazon's CreateSpace, and it's available now. Just starting to hawk this thing. If you want a preview, there's a sample from the book under the LJ cut.

A note

The passing traffic vibrated in her ears as she quickly walked down her street. The strings in her shoulders were twisting around. It was an unusually heavy commute on her street for that time of night.

It wasn’t until she rounded the corner and stood next to her apartment building’s doorway that a wave of fatigue washed over her, causing her to stop in her tracks. The weight of her arms and legs fell out of her as she experienced a wave of dizziness. A familiar listing of the ground forced her to lower her head and prop herself up against the doorway. Putting out an arm and grabbing the side of her apartment’s entrance, she let her heavy head hang down.

Raising her head and peering through her long and dark dreadlocks, she saw that there was no one around. She could relax.

Lowering her head again, keeping her eyes closed for a few moments, she let the heaviness rest in her arms and her shoulders. Opening her eyes, her jaded vision was blurring. No problem. She was used to such things.

As she let her mind get its second wind, she thought about what she had to eat at home. She knew she needed to eat.

Her sight began clearing up. Lifting her head, she stopped herself.

There were small bits of paper littering the entrance to her apartment building. They were torn bits of lined binder paper.

Kneeling down to take a closer look, there was something about the white bits of rendered pulp that was attracting her attention. She picked one of them up.

She picked up a few more pieces. It was a handwritten note that had been torn apart. She squinted at a larger piece.

“I hope you understand…” said one ruined section.

She picked up a few more pieces. “I know that we were close...” “If you could only realize...”

Skye began scooping up all of the pieces, putting them in her jacket pocket. Looking around, she found at least a dozen more pieces out on the sidewalk.

Taking one last look around the doorway and sidewalk, she decided that she had found all of the pieces that had not been irrevocably swept away by the languid street wind. She felt a charge as she quickly unlocked the front door and skittered up to her flat.

Up in her room, Skye took out her speed baggie and put it in her bottom dresser drawer. She carefully extracted the ruined pieces of paper from her jacket pocket, double-checking to make sure she had gotten them all out.

After having thoroughly searched her jacket pockets, she went to the corner liquor store for a forty of Budweiser and a roll of Scotch tape. She also grabbed a few packages of Chocodiles as well. Coming back from the store, she double-checked the entrance to her building and the surrounding concrete for any more errant pieces of rented note. Spotting one final piece that she had missed, she grabbed it and ran up to her flat.

Carefully setting everything up, she shook out the dregs of her week-old speed baggie onto her mirror and carefully opened her forty. Opening the Chocodiles and laying them out, she snorted a couple of quick lines and took a few hits off the Budweiser. Lying down on her stomach, just over the edge of her futon, she collected the pieces of paper and arranged them on the floor.

The pieces of paper were bright against the scuffed and dark wooden floor. It looked like a sardonic jigsaw puzzle. The note had gone through a fairly violent rendering. Some of the pieces were long and thin, while other pieces were wider and shorter. A few were so small Skye was wondering if she would ever be able to fit them in at all. She laid out each piece flat before trying to piece them together.

A few pieces jumped right out at her, appearing to be obvious candidates for joining. Carefully maneuvering two strips together, she was able to line up the dark blue-inked letters to verify that the pieces belonged next to each other. She laid the two pieces down, side by side, carefully aligning them, and slowly stretched out a piece of tape.

With surgical cautiousness, she aligned and pressed down the tape, joining the two pieces. Lifting up the newly-mended section of the note, she admired her work. She had pressed it back together perfectly. It was quite clear she would be able to read the note if the rest of her joinings were as competent.

Skye spied a corner that read “Joey – “, which she elected as the best candidate for the beginning of the letter. A few moments later she found another piece that read “Love Always, Eve.” She put the pieces on either side of the field of scattered paper pieces, each in its own corner.

A few more moments of searching and she found a few other pairs of pieces that went together. She was always quite cautious with her taping. She knew that once they were taped together, there was no realistic way she could separate them again.

After a while she had several small sections pieced back together. The author had written on both sides of the paper. Skye got a small charge when she realized that two re-taped sections had a common edge, and she was able to join them into one big piece.

Turning the piece around, she could make out a few short sentences. The section was large enough that she could read part of the note, but she resisted the temptation. She didn’t want to read any of the note until she had the entire thing put back together.

She lost track of time as she worked. Bringing out her new baggie of speed, she did another line. She could still feel her weekend burn out as a light feeling centered in her head, as well as a slow weight on the upper part of her back, but her curiosity kept her energized as she kept plodding through her meticulous task.

After a good long hour of work, she taped together the last few pieces. The note was almost completely intact.

Turning the note around, she was examining her handiwork. She had completed the pieces in almost perfect condition. It was perfectly legible, almost as if it had never been torn to tatters at all. Many of her repairs appeared to be seamless.

She decided to have one more line before reading it. She wanted to be good and wide-eyed for its revelations.

Snorting up a decently sized line, she did not feel too much of a jolt. She had been running on crank for too long. It did, however, lighten her skin and bolster her eyes.

Taking another few hits off of the Bud, she carefully picked up the taped together note and began to read it properly.

“Joey, you and I have been going out for a long time now. Maybe it does not seem that long to you, but it does to me.

I know a note like this may not seem a proper way to tell you about something like this, but I did not know what else to do. I do not know if I could stand to tell you this face to face, and I think a phone call would be even more hard than this letter.

I’ll never forget the first time we met. You were so energetic and you had such a nice smile. I really liked your sense of humor. You were always so crazy and always so willing to make everyone laugh.

But now all you do anymore is get wired, and get stoned, and get drunk. All you do now is get wasted and fucked up and burnt out. I know you said I was a hypocrite because I smoke pot and drink beer and do speed. But I only did speed a few times, and I don’t smoke pot all the time. I do drink when I go out, but only when I go out, to a party, to a club, to a friend’s house. I don’t drink all of the time. I don’t smoke pot all of the time. I don’t snort speed all of the time.

I know you think that woman with the weird and scary black hair in your apartment is a speed freak, and I know you are thinking about asking her if she knows where to get any speed because you said you don’t want to buy speed on upper Haight anymore. I know all of this because you told me all of this. You told me when you were really really drunk. You told me before that you were going to stop doing speed when you dealer stopped coming to the cafe and you couldn’t find him. Now you’re thinking of asking some stranger who happens to live in your building if they know where they can get you drugs. It’s too much. It’s too crazy. You don’t know what kind of fucked up things that woman does, or what kind of fucked up people she knows. For all I know she’s going to get you hooked onto speed even more than you are now. She might even get you hooked on something worse, though I don’t know if there is anything worse than what you are already doing. My God Joey, she might even know people who could have you killed. She is a very mean and strange looking person and I wish you would not get mixed up with her at all.

I know what you are going to say. You are going to yell at me that I’ve done speed before too. I did. I did on that weekend at Nikki’s, and that other time over at Steve’s. I may have done it once or twice before, but not that often.

I would ask and plead with you to stop, but I know I can’t get you to stop snorting speed all of the time. I don’t think there is any way I can still see you anymore, not when you are doing this and planning on getting mixed up in all kinds of things which will just mess things up worse than they already are.

I’m sorry, but that’s my final decision.

I know you are probably angry, but please know that you will always have a place in my heart, whatever happens.

Love Always, Eve

Putting the note down, Skye crossed her arms. Lying on her futon, she stared straight out over the floor.

A sudden tightness shot through her arms, legs and shoulders. She bolted to her feet.

Taking the note into the bathroom, she quickly tore it to pieces.

She flushed the pieces of the re-rendered note down the toilet.

http://www.amazon.com/Crash-Shadow-Tale-Two-Addicts/dp/151691001X

Race report: Napa Valley Ragnar 2015 - 33 hours in Paradise

2015-11-02T15:26:02Z

I know this race report is rather late. Originally I had been far too busy to write it right after the race, but several people were all "Where's your race report?" So here it is!

A couple of weekends ago I was one of twelve runners for the team 33 hours in Paradise during the Napa Valley Ragnar Relay, a long distance relay that went through four counties in Northern California, starting in San Francisco. (From October 23rd to the 24th.)

For those of you not familiar with a Ragnar Relay: The Ragnar Relay is a long-distance relay race a la' Hood to Coast. The average team has 12 runners, and the course is around 200 miles long. Each runner runs three legs of 3 to 9 miles, and the race takes an average of 30 hours to complete. The runners get from exchange to exchange via two passeneger vans. While one van's runners are running, the other van is resting and trying to get some sleep. For more info, check out this link.

I was in van one, which included Emily, our fearless and practical van captain, Zandra the bionic relay runner, (She had a cyborg running outfit for one leg,) thee Hiromi who hails from New York, New York, Erica who was my teammate last year for this very same team, and Andy, a runner who jumped onto the team at the very last minute since we had someone drop out suddenly just a week before the race.

First Leg: A wee lil' trot through Sausalito to Marin City.

My first leg was just under three miles through Sausalito. It was still kind of early, and most of the morning fog had burned off.

Originally I had been runner five, which had seventeen total miles of legs. But at the last minute, and I mean just a few days before the race, the course had changed and an extra five miles had been added to my position. Now usually that's no big deal for me, but my IT band had been giving me a lot of problems and I didn't want to stress it out too much, (Especially since I'm training for a marathon in December,) so I asked if anyone wanted to trade legs. Thee Hiromi agreed to swap positions, ergo I had her less daunting position four, (A total of about 14 miles,) while she got to pound out the 22 give er' take miles in position five.

The course for my first leg was basically flat, with just one hill through some residential neighborhoods. The only snag was some confusing signs. It turns out that the road up to the exchange was also the same road where the runner fives came out, and a few Ragnar signs at one intersection got some of us runners to stop and look around to see where we were going. We quickly figured it out and charged up the road. A nice, easy run.

The day before: Volunteering

Each team that registers for a Ragnar Relay is required to get three volunteers to help out with the race. Obviously rounding up volunteers for a 200 mile relay race is rather daunting, thus the requirement. In order to fulfill this requirement, myself and Hiromi, along with my mother Virginia, volunteered to set up the start line the day before the race. Obviously there's no way Hiromi and I could possibly volunteer during the race, but the day before was no problem, and it helped the team out.

Most of the work involved either hauling things, or stuffing team shirts into individual bags for each team participating in the relay race. The organzing of race shirts for the various teams was the most time consuming task, and took up most of the volunteers and their time. Myself and a couple of other volunteers lugged tables, chairs, banners, and tents. The hardest job was hauling quite a few cases of Monster energy drinks that were there to be handed out at a Monster energy tent. All in all it was about five or six hours of work.

Second Leg: Traffic on the Road

My night time leg was my longest leg: More than eight miles through Sebastapol. This was the leg where my gamey IT band would really be tested.

Most of the run was along a very busy and dark road with no sidewalk. (And virtually no streetlights.) The strip we had to run was a concrete side strip, with the only thing seperating us from the main road being a white thin painted line. Even though it was late at night the traffic was still quite heavy. More than half of the time I could not hear my Runkeeper call out the pace and distance because of the sound of wooshing cars. At one point, the road ran alongside a deep ditch, meaning if I veered even a few inches to my left I would have gone tumbling off of the road.

Eventually we got to downtown which meant sidewalks! And streetlights! A welcome relief. By then I felt quite good. Only once did I take a walking break because of my IT band. For the better part it behaved. Also the weather for the run was perfect. Just cool enough to run comfortably.

My Van One teammates:

I got to meet Hiromi the day before during our volunteer gig. She had been in San Francisco for the entire week, as she had run in the Nike Women's Half Marathon the weekend before, as had many of my 33 Hours teammates. We really clicked and gabbed up a storm with each other throughout the whole weekend. Emily, thee van Captain, kept us on our toes by moving things along while also maintaining a good spirit. I also had fun getting to know Zandra, who was also my teammate the year before but was in the other van. I felt quite at home with Emily and Zandra, being as Emily is a vegetarian and Zandra is a vegan. It was nice to have two other non-meat eaters along for the ride! Erica was also my teammate last year, but also in the other van, and I had a blast getting to spend some quality stuck-in-a-van-together-for-thirty-hours time with her. I could tell Andy was from out of town, based on his accent. He originally hails from Bristol. He also got dressed up for a few of his runs. I didn't realize the man in the purple felt stovepipe hat an tutu was my teammate until I saw him hanging out at the exchange with my teammates.

Last Leg: Through Napa

My last leg was a bit more than three miles through Napa. It was a mellow run along a nice and quiet road. The weather was still nice and mild. Leading up to the exchange, we went over a bridge that took us over a river. The scenery was so nice I had to stop and take a picture with my Android. I ran quite a brisk pace for this last leg, better than I had expected I would.

The Finish

Napa Valley Ragnar has always taken place in September, but for this year they moved it to late October, which meant that the weather was much nicer. Every past Napa Ragnar had a very hot second day. Not so with this Napa Ragnar, until we got to the finish line. It was quite hot, and myself and the rest of van one spent the time shopping at the merchandise tent as well as lazing about until it was time to get to the finish line and run in as a team.

We also ended up with quite a coincidence: Each team counts its "kills", a kill meaning that you passed a runner during your leg. (Not actual homicide, mind you.) It turns out that for the entire race, van once had 133 kills altogether. Van two? They also had 133 kills. How about that!

All in all, one of the best Ragnar Relays I've run. I got to make a bunch of new friends, get to know some former teammates much better, and enjoyed a long relay race with very pleasaant weather. If my IT band hadn't been bothering me, it would have been perfect!

The day before: Volunteers putting together the start line, including inflating the giant start line gate.

Emily and Erica shortly before the team started at What-time-is-it o'clock.

Erica getting rehydrated during a leg

An electric van, covered with lights. We saw this thing at night, and it looked like an obscene Christmas tree!

Waiting for a runner at a major exhcange, where both vans meet. From left to right:
Zandra, Andy, our Team Captian Cathy, Hiromi, (In foreground,) and Emily.

Team tagging is a tradition at Ragnar Relays, and our van got a lot of team magnets!

Nor Cal is foodie country, so good eats! From ledt to right, Emily, Andy, me, Hiromi, Zandra, and Erica

A Super Trooper team! Running right meow!

Team photo at the finish line!

Bashir's Memorial Photo Album

2015-10-12T23:59:34Z

I made a memorial album for Bashir on my Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/rephnantukka/media_set?set=a.10153505320423387.1073741833.555253386&type=1

In case you missed it, my cat Bashir passed on last week when he was struck and killed by a speeding car. Post here:

http://jvmatucha.livejournal.com/588555.html

Goodbye Bashir

2015-10-06T19:51:24Z

Yesterday morning my large tabby cat Bashir passed on when he was struck and killed by a car.

Bashir was more like a dog than a cat. Nine times out of ten, when I drove up to the house, he would come running up to greet me, meowing loudly. Sometimes he would jump into the car, and you could actually close the door and drive around the block and he would look out of the window like a dog. He loved to go for car rides. (Which made taking him to the vet much easier!) Sometimes I would see him a block or two from the house when I was driving home, and I would stop and he'd jump in the car and I'd drive him home.

I refered to him as my "genetically attached" cat. He would follow me around the yard when I was gardening. If I went from the front yard to the back yard he'd follow me and just sit nearby while I was raking leaves or cutting ivy, as if he were supervising. He slept with me in my bed almost every night. He would bother me when I was at the desk, when I was working, when I was playing video games, when I was writing. Whenever I got on the floor to do leg exercises or foam roll, he'd run up and headbonk me and try to play with me.

Oftentimes it could be annoying, getting headbonked at 2 AM, or having a cat nose in your face when you were trying to debug a program. The thing was, he was always around. My other cat Jadzia is oftentimes aloof. She hardly ever sleeps on my bed, she never ran up to me when I drove up, or when I got down on the floor for foam rolling. Sometimes she follows me around the yard, and occasionally she will ask for pettings or to play. (She loves the red dot.) But she wasn't around nearly as much as Bashir.

As much as he stuck beside me Bashir was also a wanderer. He wandered all over the neighborhood. In a way it's not surprising that he met his end this way. I always knew it was a possibility. He was sometimes reckless about crossing the street, and I would holler at him and chase him back onto the sidewalk. He was much more of a wanderer when he was younger, going all over the neighborhood. In his older age he stuck to home much more often, and I assumed he had it figured out, how to move around the neighborhood and stay out of danger. I assumed, after awhile, that he really would live to a ripe old kitty age. I thought we had at least five more years together before age started catching up to him, and probably not even then. At ten years old he was still very healthy and robust and active. Usually he stuck to the quiet side streets when he did stray from the house, such as the one I live on, but his body was found on a main street, a very busy street not too far from my house, where he rarely ventured. Animal services, who picked him up, were able to find us because of his mirochip.

I once wondered aloud on my Facebook, "Why must my cat love me so?" (In reference to his always sticking by me and harrassing me.) Yeah, this seems like a big deal for a cat, but like I said, he was more like a dog than a cat. For more than ten years, he was a part of my everyday life at home.

Last night I spent the night at a friend's house. This morning I droppped him off at the vets, so he can be cremated. I gave him one last kiss and one last scritch in the front yard before I took him into the car, because that's one of the places where we spent so much time.

So tonight I will sleep in a cold and empty bed, without a big tabby cat keeping me warm. So many things around this house remind me of him: Getting down on the floor to exercise or foam roll, gardening in the yard, working or playing on the computer, or just even driving up to the house; All of those regular, everday and routine things I do remind me of him. Call me a crazy cat man if you must, but this pet's passing has affected me more than any other previous pet's departure. I've lost cats and dogs before, but this one is the toughest loss.

Goodbye Bashir. You were a big strong cat full of unconditional love, affection, and loyalty. My life just got a lot more cold and lonely.

Fooootball! And Counter Attack Memes

2015-09-11T16:40:40Z

So the NFL season officially started last night, and I'm in not one, but two fantasy football leagues with thee greeneyedsadie.

Along with being a longtime 49er fan, I always get rather irked when people start posting snarky memes and posts about how much they don't care about football. It's like, I might not care about the ballet, but I'm not going to go out of my way to dump on people who do.

That's when a friend of mine posted on Facebook about this anti-football behavior, an inspiring rant that was shared by several of her friends, and which inspired me to make this lil' meme, which I posted to Facebook:

So there! :)

Watch This

2015-08-20T16:25:48Z

You'll be glad you did. Watch it and share it!

Race Report: San Francisco Marathon

2015-07-28T22:12:59Z

This past Sunday I ran the San Francisco Marathon. It was my fourth San Francisco Marathon and my 16th marathon since I ran my first in 2009.

The SF Marathon was my first ever marathon back in 2009, and since then they have barely changed the course. It's basically the same course year after year. (One or two turns might have been changed, but that's it!)

I only signed up for two marathons this year, SF and the California International Marathon, which I run every year, so I went nearly eight months without running a marathon, which is unusual for me. (I usually sign up for three or four each year!)

While this was not a PR attempt, it was in the back of my mind. I decided that this would be a more-or-less just for fun run. I am planning on making a serious PR attempt in December at the CIM, so I was taking this one as a dress rehersal of sorts. I let myself just cruise along for the first part of the marathon. I was in wave five of eight starting waves, and we set off on time, just after 6 AM.

I kept a watch on my Garmin as we ran along the Embarcadero and the piers, on our way to Fisherman's Wharf and the Presidio. The weather was cloudy and cool and even a little misty. Even so, I tried to keep an even pace, which is easy at this marathon. The traffic jam keeps you from revving up, or keeping your pace if you are trying to PR. (Lots of "On your left! On your left!")

At mile eight I felt fine, but as I checked out my Garmin I realized a PR attempt was probably not in the works. Maybe if I was able to manage negative splits at that point then sure, but that wasn't too likely.

Up the first nasty hill by the Presidio, we could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. The bridge is fun to run on, but with just one street lane for the runners to cram into it becomes the worst traffic jam of the entire race. (Hello running partners who take walking breaks with each other. Think you can at least walk SINGLE FILE instead of SIDE-BY-SIDE on the $@#*&^! bridge???) By the time I had gone back and forth across the GG Bridge it was still cloudy and cool. My sunglasses remained on the top of my hat.

I felt fine as we entered Golden Gate Park and the half marathoners veered off to finish their races. I decided to just try and enjoy the run, and trot along to work out the rest of this marathon. The idea of catching a PR was lost on me at that point, and I really didn't mind. It was still cloudy enough that I didn't bother putting on my sunglasses just yet.

And then, it happened.

I hit that wall, hard, shortly before mile 16.

I just crashed all at once. My energy drained out of me to the point where I had to stop running and hit a long walking break. I turned off my MP3 player and walked for about half a mile. I was totally dead. Obviously I didn't carb up enough for this race. I had been changing my diet, and working on losing more weight, but I took it too far, obviously.

Earlier at the Bay Bridge turnaround someone handed me a bag of GU gel chews at the water station, which I stowed in my Spi belt. I had eaten only one of them, now I took it out and ate all of them. I started running again, grabbing a banana and an orange that were being handed out at one point, and I doubled up on the electrolytes at the water stations. That got me back to the point where I could run the rest of the race at a decent pace.

It was shortly after recovering from this wall slam when I started talking to a young woman who was running her first marathon. I struck up a conversation with her because she was wearing a Berkeley Half Marathon shirt, and she mentioned that she was a physicist at UC Berkeley. We chatted for quite a few miles before she fell back. She said talking to me really helped her keep going. It helped me keep going as well. I only know her as Helen from UC Berkeley who's an astrophysicist who's going to do her PhD at UCLA. She's going to be working on galaxy formations. We talked about physics and astronomy for a while. I asked her if she could work on warp drive instead of the galaxy stuff, so we can finally go romping around like in Star Trek. :)

I did all right for the rest of the course. If I had fueled up properly, I would have done much better. At this point live and learn should already apply, but like I said, this was a dress rehersal fro the CIM in December, where I will really go for broke and finally try to break my marathon PR, which is already several years old.

In any case, I had a lot of fun running this race. I felt fairly good after running it as well. Not as tore up as I usually feel after running a marathon. w00t!

Goth Acapella?

2015-07-21T19:19:22Z

So I posted this picture of myself and three of my high school friends on Facebook the other day, with the following caption: "So we were thinking of starting a goth acapella group. What should we call ourselves?"

From left to right: Dan, Me, Matt, and Michael. Partners in crime from my glorious and misspent past!

I got a ton of responses, not just from my friends, but from friends of friends since I tagged those guys in the picture. Here are some of my favorite band name suggestions for our quartet. (Extra points if you get some of the more obscure-ish references):

Four Feet in the Grave
The Dead Beats
The Undertones
The Telltale Heartbreakers
Finnegans Wake
The Misters of Mercy
NunSexMonkRockappella
The Sweeny Toads
The Club Lipps Geriatric Auxiliary
Andrew Elderly
Barbershop of Doom
Something Wicked This Way Croons
Skeleton Soft Shoe
Barberschoked
Misery loves harmony
Oy Division (If we decide to go klezmer...)

And, my favorite...

Bela Lugosi's Dad

Which ones do you like best? And any more suggestions? :)