John Holmes 50K

OK, so a marathon is nice. and if a 5K is good, a marathon is better, then ultras must be the best, right? to an alcoholic of course; more is better. Since I couldn't get up to Hartford, or chicago for that matter, I decided to go ultra and do the John Holmes 50K. I thought John Holmes had something to do with the extra length, but apparently he was a race director early on, possibly.



here's a video (I hope) i am there at 2:37 and 4:37. I do not look cool. I need a nice running top.

and a picture of my less than stellar 6 hour finishing time.

But, when i say less than stellar, what i really mean is that i had no idea that I was in the lead for my age group. I had a goal time of 5 hours, and when it started slipping away, i cared less about time and more about finishing. I stopped at the last rest stop and picked up my bag, and got ready to get to the finish line. That's when #35 came flying through and finished before me. I never even considered that he was now taking 1st place in the age group. could I have asked?

Lesson: Half measures avail us nothing.

My Baby's belly

I wish I had a place to set up a camera and take a picture a day for my wife's pregnancy, but here are four. :)

Red Bull Flugtag hits Tampa

The more I think about it the more I like my city. I really do. We just have fun sometimes. I walked around in the hot sun and watched a little flugtag. I probably have a better chance of seeing the actual planes on the internets, but the crowd! the crowd was huge. I walked from my apartment down bayshore to platt st. and then around to almost harbour Island, then back around to the back of the hospital on Davis Islands. If I really wanted to see the flying machines, I would have gone onto the rehab deck. But it was hot, and I came, I saw, I went home and made tostadas con huevos, tocino, queso y salsa. MMMM yummy!

I got married again

I got married again. I don't foresee myself becoming a "Ross Geller," this was to the same woman, with no divorce in between. I guess you could say it was a renewing of our vows. Sonia would say that it was finally the church wedding she always dreamed of. I have to admit it was a wonderful wedding and the reception was awesome.

The wedding was in Torreon Mexico. It was in a beautiful catholic church. The ceremony was on June 21st, the solstice. That holds sweet catholic/pagan irony right in it's juicy hands. :)

Here's the pics so far. Sonia is not back until July 27 and then i will have more. Hopefully she and some of our friends will have uploaded some of the pics to photobucket.




























OK, so I got one 8 mile run in...

May Classic

I swear, there are things that I like besides running. But you might not notice by my posts huh? I have been looking at my running log. I was at 65 miles a week for three weeks, then I missed a run, then I got tired, then the neighbors had a party on the weekday, and I got more tired. blah blah blah ad infinitum. the result was, that my taper for a 5K looked more like a taper for a marathon, and there were two weeks of forty miles and a thirty.

However, I did do some intervals and other speedwork, which my running was so sorely lacking. Also, my legs feel pretty good. I was having a knee issue. I definitely need more leg strength. Something to work on for the summer.

So, I tried to train up for this 5K and I feel I did a good job. I am happy with my time of 23:42






I'm the guy in the white shirt.















The race starts and finishes in Hyde Park, in Tampa. It is an out and back on Bayshore. I live within walking distance, and it was really easy to warm up a couple of miles. The walk home is always a bit more difficult. The race is chipped, but still people crowd the start. How hard is: walkers to the back.

Maybe next year I'll try the USF 5K.

OK, so it's a miracle to me

Well as you can see this is a sonogram, and I am so happy to say that Sonia is pregnant. The little peanut is about 6 weeks by looking at it. I know it's early, but everything is going well. I am so blessed. I cannot believe that God thinks I am ready, but he does. I guess if everyone else in the world can do it, we can. I think though, all the learning and growth that I've done in the past six years have led up to this point.

I'm kinda having a good day. I was doing some reading. This months Muscle&Fitness had an article on Crossfit and at the website are some videos. I was looking for one on Kipping. So i see some videos on correcting running form. Apparently CrossFit promotes pose running. I did a drill and tried it out.

I had the kind of running day that makes me know God himself. It was the runner's high. I ran so well. My average speed was 8:45 at my normal heartrate. Running was almost effortless. my legs felt the burn when i was done, but my lungs were ready to go. The way i felt today, i feel like I could hit 22 minutes for my next 5K. it was insane. this was a breakthrough.

Little by Little

I have been listening to the podcast of EkartTolle and Oprah going over his book, "A New Earth." I have had the complete Tolle writings for over a year now. But the first time I listened to the unbridged audio book as read by the author, i did not get it and I left it be. Oddly, that is something that Mr. Tolle writes about, that it will be when it is. As an antidisestablishmentariansist I resisted all things Oprah.
I read "A billion little Pieces" and laughed that she thought that was biographical. I thought that all the motorcyclist killing soccer moms could not have found a true guru. Unfortunately little by little I found my self swirling into the cesspool of spirituality lite fostered by pop-enlightenits, like Dr. Wayne Dyer and PBS. Even Suzi Orman now is part of the enlightenment group.
But I do like to listen to things non-musical when i run. I think that i have listened to a great amount of thought over the years and have found a few things to be common.

1. God. There is no way around it, there is a power greater than yourself. The sooner you get over the fact that you are insignificant compared to the universe, the sooner you can turn your kayak down water and start enjoying things.

2. Once you tap into that source that created everything, everything is at your use. Manifestation is real. Don't believe me? try it for your self.

3. The true test of character is the ability to remain kind in the face of hardship.

i once asked my sensei when we learned to shoot fireballs from our hands like in the video game "street fighter" he said with a straight face, "4th dan." He was a surfer , that studied accounting, and trained karate until he was a sensei. he had a wonderful daughter that was supposed to be an Olympic swimmer, and a boy that struggled with autism. I could have learned so much more from that man if I wasn't so consumed by alcoholism.

This brings me back to Tolle. Tolle is either an alcoholic, or has read the book. Every part of his book talks about the spiritual enlightenment that comes from recovering from alcoholism. But i think that this is more having to do with a theory of sameness. I asked sensei which was the best style, Shotokan, or Kung Fu. I had a match against a kung fuist in an open tournament. It boiled down to this, at the top levels it's all the same. You spend a lifetime throwing punches over and over, so that when the time came, that punch was thrown unconsciously when it was needed in the split second where it fit. Watching two yellow belts spar is not unlike a 2nd grade ballet recital. Whereas two masters strike like serpents and the match is over.

So possibly Ekart is not ripping off AA, but possibly he has found another path to the same shady spot in the field.

Now let me tell you what I discovered about myself the other day. Tolle was talking about pain bodies. That we each hold the collective unconcious pain bodies of our ancestors. American Indians, Jews, women, we all have an inate story. then there is the pain body that perhaps our parents gave to us as children. I am still dealing with mine, adn I suspect all alcoholics have to heal this at some point through the steps.

I was given another learning opportunity the other day. there was a young African American gentleman that came through. I would guess that he was born with a certain amount of pain, and that more was heaped upon him, until his conscious ego learned to thrive upon it, and it asked for more. So he was shot and paralyzed. Accidents don't just happen. I am not going to try to explain the pain body here, you'll have to read it for yourself, but I do see some manifesting here. His pain body was not done with him yet, now he has decubitus ulcers on his sacrum. Now i walk in. he is mean and nasty. And instead of felling pity or compassion, my first reaction is to harden, to label, to stop listening. i hate him. I cut him short. I label him a drug seeker, and I leave the room, sickened by him.

the next day i am running and listen about the pain body, and this kid comes to mind. His pain body awakened something in my pain body that just sent rockets up. Simply put in AA, "You spot it you got it." More aptly put, he got me out of the unconscious and put me straight into ego. Instead of giving him an empathetic, nonjudgmental ear, I gave him more food for his pain body.

Man, do I have a lot more growth to make.

More Pics of Tampa

So what I have here is a few different views of the skyline, and some of the art along bayshore. The graffiti is left by visiting crew teams and there is a lot of it along the river that leads to the bay. then a crew boat. And a house that i like. I don't know what happened, it used to have glass bricks, I like those.

Me fail English? that's unpossible!

Tampa by foot

Inspired by the squirrel, I brought my camera out on my last long run. Here's some shots:

First off, anyone see Extreme Makeover Tampa? Here is the house. It's nice, but nothing special, except that it was given to the family. I guess the insurance wasn't paying for their burned out home on the million dollar property. Here is a picture of a cruise liner coming down the channel between Davis Islands and Harbour Island. Yes these boats are huge. I've never been on one,but the wife promises next year. I've got a shot of the other side of the channel. Where all the hockey, baseball and football players live. Funny no teachers live there. Next is a shot of the hospital where I work. We are the safety net for all the indigent people of Tampa, I am one of 30+ Social Workers that work there. Below that is a shot of the Tony Gaspar, the ship that captured Tampa, and now we celebrate Gasparilla each year by getting drunk and pretending we are in NOLA. That's when I run a marathon. What so you think of when you think of Florida? Is it wide boulevards lined by palm trees with beautiful people roller blading and running? yup, that's exactly what it's like. Finally, A shot of one of three TGH helicopters landing near the Level 1 trauma center. the other one is waiting to take off.

Deena Kastor is cool

I had a bit of a surprise weekend. I was looking at some stuff on Thursday night and I saw that Deena Kastor and Brian Sell were going to be running in the Gate River Run USA 15K championship.

After watching "Spirit of a Marathon" my wife is now a Deena fan, and I like the Brooks/Hanson team, and was excited about Brian going to Beijing in August. So amazingly my wife propositioned that we drive to Jacksonville to watch the race. It is only a 3 1/2 hour trip. So off we drove after work and a three mile run of our own. We stopped for Sushi at Publix (I know, how american of us) and the torrential downpour started.

We ate sushi on the way, and made good time, but still got to Jacksonville Stadium about midnight. We put the seats flat in the Durango and fell asleep rather quickly. Note to self, get some shades for the windows. Peeing wasn't a problem at night, however when awoken by EMF "unbelievable" it dawned on me to park closer to portopotties next time we do something like this.

When they say America's biggest 15K they ain't kiddin'. There were about 12K people in this race. The start looked like Chicago, but about 1/4 the size in reality. insane. Deena was given a 5 minute head start with 24 other elite women, then the cannons sounded and 12K people chased after.

I thought that there would be a crowd of spectators considering the Olympic runners there, but I think we were the only Deena fans there. And Brian shaved, so I was not 100% sure it was him, I did not want to look like a total moron congratulating him and finding out it was a team mate. I will edit this post when I get the pics from my wife's camera. But needless to say, it was a bit of silly fun to drive up just to watch Deena kick ass, which she did.

A big thank you

I wanted to thank all the volunteers from the Gasparilla marathon on Sunday. You all did a great job making sure we got water and Gatorade.

I am writing this though because I wanted to make a special thank you to a group of special kids. The group from Let Me Play. There were huge groups of kids lining Bayshore from Bay to Bay northward. Those little cherubs took the time after their big race to come back and cheer on the marathoners. I have to say that without their support I might not have broken the 4 hour mark. They were awesome, and I can not thank them enough for their support. I hope they all keep running and someday do marathons of their own, whatever those marathons might be.

God Bless

welcome

Hi, I am setting this up because it makes it easy to share things across the net. the first thing that I want to share is the Nike+ graph from the Gasparilla Marathon. I had my iPod with me, sans headphones, so that I could get a recording of my run.



As you can see it is fairly flat, but slopes downward. That means I was a little fast at the beginning and it hurt me later on. Since I ended up with a 3:59:11 finishing (Chip) time, I am pretty darn satisfied. The top of the peak is at 8 miles and is 8:18, the last three miles are at 9:03, that last bit is where I forgot to turn it off for a little bit.

BTW, Cabezon is what my wife calls me. It means a lot of things. Literally it means big head, poetically it means stubborn. But for today it means, what the heck have I gotten myself into?