Trick-or-Treat

I went Trick-or-Treating tonight with my 2 year old daughter, and 3 of our neighbors and their kids. All in the 2-3 age range.

I tell you what, there is nothing more satisfying than watching your kid go trick-or-treating for the first time. There was something so pure about it.

She started out very unsure of the process and leery of the strangers and their doors decked out in spooky decorations, but with each house she grew more and more confident and really picked it up. By halfway through our night, she would come running back to me from the door yelling "more houses!"

On a seperate note, my son wore his Dodgers baseball outfit. I have enjoyed telling people he is dressed up as Joe Torre for Halloween. Lets hope I didn't jinx the negotiations.

Missed Motivation Station

What's up all? Its Saturday evening, everyone is off to bed and I've found some time to drop a note on the blog.

This was an interesting week from a workout perspective. I was swamped on Monday getting caught up after being out a week in Puerto Rico, and had a huge presentation to give on Tuesday, so I couldn't get my mind focussed on training in the first half of the week. For some reason, when stress levels are high I am great at talking myself out of sticking to the plan.

With motivation running low, I didn't get back out to run until Thursday night, and even then, I started my run at 8:30pm and had a Shiner Bock and one Margarita in my system from an after work networking function I was the host of, and therefor could not get out of.

My Friday run was very encouraging. The weather is now cool in North Texas and with that, I can comfortably throw down a bit of speed. I did a 4 mi tempo run, running a 9:52, 9:18, 8:33, then a 4:33 half mi before slowing to a cool down. Averaged 9:23 for the entire run.

Today I was a bit gimpy from the run, so I took it slow in hopes of being able to recover for my 10 miler tomorrow. I know 4 runs in a row, and what is scheduled to be 7 runs in 8 days is not healthy, so we'll see how I feel.

Many of you know I've been dealing with a bad case of plantar fascitis since April of this year. It just won't go away, but I could probably do more to get it better. I just sat with my foot in a tub of ice water for a while, and that seems to helped. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

I'm loving the weather. It is long sleeve dry fit, shorts, and a hat weather. Awesome! If anyone has any ideas on how to stay motivated, I'd love to learn your tricks. I can't get out of bed to train in the morning, am having a hard time getting away in the middle of the day, and have wishy-washy will power in the evening. HELP!!!

Back from the Island

Its been a while since I last blogged. As most of you know, I took the family down to Puerto Rico for the week.

We left on Monday morning (10/15), and despite horrible storms in DFW and the threat of cancellations, the flight got out though a bit late.

We were greeted by some real bad traffic as we made our way out of San Juan to Palmas Del Mar, the resort community our hotel was located on.

I had read that Puerto Rico is one of the most densely populated places in the world (more dense than Manhattan NY, and even Bangladesh) so I wasn't sure what to expect. Sitting in the traffic, the stats were confirmed.

Palmas Del Mar is located on the eastern side of the island about 50 miles SE of San Juan. It is a huge developed community with marinas, golf courses, condos, hotels, beach, etc. It was pretty nice. Definitely secluded from the rest of the island.

We laid low on Tuesday hitting up our hotel pool and the hotel beach. Nothing to write home about, so I won't, but the kids had a good time.

On Wednesday, we headed up to El Yunque National Forest, the only Rain Forest in the US National Forest program. The Rain Forest actually consists of 4 different types of forest. The park is on the slopes of a mountain that starts around 300 ft in elevation, and goes up to 3,500 ft, so the forest changes as you reach higher altitudes.

you can drive about 2/3 of the way up the mountain, so you can really see some of the changes in a matter of minutes as you make your way up. We toured the visitor center which was nicely done with some interactive displays. We drove up to La Coca Falls and got out to take some pictures.

Then we headed further up the mtn and got out and did a short hike on the Bano Grande trail.

This park was really well done, and I could have spent the hole day hiking it. I'd highly recommend it.



On Thursday we headed in to Old San Juan to walk the streets and tour the San Cristobal Castle. It was the warmest of the days we were there, so besides getting a little sticky, it was very cool.
We decided to come home a day early, primarily because we had done all that we planned to do, and the hotel pool and beach weren't enough to get us to stay for another day.

We planned to jump on a 9:30am flight on Friday morning, but didn't get on as a flight from San Juan to Tampa was canceled due to a mechanical issue, and all of those passengers got reacomodiated on any flight with empty seats. So we ended up hanging out in the airport until 5:00pm and got on the last flight of the day. We had packed only enough diapers to get us home on our original morning flight, so between rationing water to keep diapers dry, and borrowing diapers from complete strangers in the airport, we made due, but it sucked.

I'll be the first to tell you that flight benefits for airline employees just don't cut it. In this day and age of record high load factors, and an over loaded Air Traffic Control system, traveling stinks, and trying to travel standby just doesn't ever work flawlessly for me. I'd have more patience if I was alone or with Ingrid, but standby with little kids is a disaster wating to happen.

So its nice to be home sleeping in my own bed again. I've got a 10 mile run on the schedule for today, and am searching for motivation to go out and do it. I probably need to start soon or it aint gonna happen.

Have a good week every one.

PS. anyone looking to watch all or parts of the IM World Championships can catch the re-feed here

Kona Aftermath

What a day yesterday! I started off with a 5 mile trail run on a pretty popular mt. bike trail called the North Shore trail on lake grapevine. I was hoping to get off the concrete for a day, but I find after running on trails that everything below my knee kills as a result. Sore feet and shins, still I enjoyed the change of scenery.

My daughter Reagan had her 2nd birthday party yesterday, which was a success. The best part of little kid birthday parties besides seeing them play together, is that they only last about an hour and a half.

And the fund raising dinner was really cool, although I was on my feet for nearly 7 hours. The trail run and the dinner pretty much tore my feet apart.

So I don't quite know what to make of the race yesterday. I guess that race is humbling in so many ways, including trying to predict the outcome.

I find it somewhat humorous that for the month or so leading up to the race, you hear how everyone's training was on, all of their markers indicate improvement over last year, etc. Then the gun goes off and the IM Live team spends 20 mins of the swim giving you all of the off the record things they know about health problems. Michellie Jones and her buster ear drum, Norman and Faris sick all week, Beke with a sore knee. It makes handicapping the race pretty much impossible.

I was glad to see Chris McCormack finally get his win, but I have to be honest and say that I am not sure what the outcome would have been with the Germans at full health. Macca's 2:42 marathon is legendary, but there was no one of concern pushing him on the bike, so he was able to sit in the pack and wait for the run. His bike split was 19 mins slower than Norman's from last year.

Craig Alexander's effort was inspiring. A 2:45 marathon from him is sick. It will be interesting to see what direction he goes with his racing. Will he switch back to focussing on 70.3, or will he continue to do fulls? In listening to interviews from Crowie, he has made it clear that he is a family guy, and doing what will pay the bills is typically the direction he goes. A $60K payday and a lot of sponsors re-inking or partnering with him might get him to focus solely on full IMs. We'll see.

I was glad to see the American men in the mix. Lieto and Deboom were there all day, and out of no where, Lovato ended up in the top 10 by being Mr. Consistent.

The women's race was equally unique. I really wanted to see the Natascha v. Michelle show down, but it wasn't to be. Instead, we were introduced to (let me look her name up again) Chrissie Wellington. I'd consider myself pretty up on the IM racing scene, but I'd never heard of her before. With a 2:59 marathon, I'll never forget her. My fault for not giving IM Korea any attention. Apparently she trains with Hillary on Brett Sutton's team, so the team fulfilled it's goal of having an IM World Champion doing it in the first year of the 3-4 years they gave themselves to accomplish this goal.

Jo Lawn was there all day, but never rode away from the field, and apparently she was sick all day too. My sleeper Sam McGlone delivered on the women's side. She ran a 3:00 marathon which was impressive. All of my Alexander thoughts above apply to McGlone now too.

From what I can tell, Hillary had an okay day. She ended up 20th, and by her split, had a tough run with a 3:30, but its certainly no shock given her recent race schedule. We'll have to read her race report for the details.

My friend Brian Dunn from Triscoop had a great day with a 9:40. He said he ran past Des Ficker on the Queen K Hwy and she was in tears. He also passed Jo Zieger at mile 4 while she was booting in an aid station. That race is so tough and people go for it as opposed to playing it safe like other IMs.

The IM Live coverage had potential. Lots of good footage out on the course. They even introduced picture in picture on several occassions. The feed outage due to a power outage on the island was a distraction, and the race updates giving "fatal error" messages for about an hour were very frustrating, but all in all, I was pleased when it was working. I left for the dinner about half way through the bike, so I can't comment on coverage while out on the run.

So we are off to Puerto Rico for a week tomorrow. We're hoping for smooth travels, good weather, and well behaved kids. I might drop in during the week if I can get an internet connection.

Have a good week.

Kona Prediction Time

Alright! Lets get to some predictions.

I'm very juiced for the race on Saturday. Although I put little faith in the weather forecast as it can turn on a dime, and the race covers such a large area, that temps will fluctuate with the terrain, it isn't looking too bad. It it supposed to rain on Kona on Friday night, which should do alot to cool temps at least early on on Sat morning. It is calling for highs in the mid to low 80s, with a real feel of 86 degrees. Winds 13 mph out of the east with 24 mph gusts. Humidity looks to be the biggest concern.

Although I've got family in town for the weekend, and my daughters b-day party on Sat morning, I should be able to watch the end of the swim and most of the bike. I'm volunteering at a fundraiser dinner on Sat night, so I will miss the finish, which I am not happy about at all, but its for a good cause. We're raising money for servicemen and women called to active duty who have taken a pay hit by having to leave their civilian jobs. The funds raised help to make ends meet for the families while they have a soldier abroad.

And now, for the predictions.
Mens Podium: 1. Norman Stadler, 2. Macca, 3. Marino Vanhoenaker
Sleeper: Timo Bracht
Most intriguing: Craig Alexander

I think Norman is just too good, and will probably ride another sub 4:20 bike and will show another step forward in his running putting down a 2:53 as he is pushed by Macca. The big wild card is the shorty wetsuit. Norman had it last year, and swam out of his mind. This year, everyone has it, so if Norman is out of the swim 3+ minutes back of Macca rather than just 14 secs, it could be a different story. My sentimental favorite is Craig Alexander. I think this guy is the most talented triathlete in the world right now, and would love to see him in the mix in his 2nd IM race ever. You know Llanos, Faris, Beke, Brown, and Bell will all be top 10.

Women's Podium: 1. Natascha Badman, 2. Michellie Jones, 3. Jo Lawn
Sleeper: Sam McGlone
Sentimental Favorite: Hillary Biscay

Natascha has been on fire this year. Just look at her Eagleman results. That is blazing. I think she's got redemption on her mind, and will have the nutrition dialed in, and will crush this one. Jo Lawn was dominant in her IMNZ victory, showed improvement on her swim, and we know she can bike. Sam McGlone is going to be my sleeper, and she very well could end up pushing Michellie for the #2 spot on the podium. This will be Sam's first ever IM, so only experience will hold her back. Many know that Hillary Biscay and I have known each other since we were 11 years old, and swam club together for many years. She is the toughest woman in the field, but IMHI will be her 3rd IM in 7 weeks, which is absolutely insane! We'll be pulling for a top 10 finish for her. She is such a stud! Two other women I want to mention, although I don't have a spot for them are Belinda Granger and Des Ficker. Belinda was dominant at Lake Placid, and assuming she has recovered, will be in the mix. Des is also a sentimental favorite given the TX connection and that I've raced with her at 3 different events, but she has had some health issues this year and has a history of blowing up at races. You can't fault her aggressiveness however. Besides folks I've mentioned, I'm sure Bentley, Kehr, and Major will round out the top 10.

Have fun watching everyone. IM Live has promised better coverage than ever before. Apparently they will have feeds from the NBC cameras out on the course. It should be good.

10.6 Weekend Observations

Well, well, where do I start. Saturday morning got off to a good start. I did a nice 8 mile run in the mist. It wasn't hot but obviously was humid. I felt pretty good, and could have kept going, but definitely felt as if I was pushing my bounds a bit. Not aerobically, but more like I could feel my joints and lower legs growing fatigued by the stress of running. Anyhow, it was a good session before heading into a recovery week.

My good buddy Woody's wedding was in Plano on Sat. It was an amazing time. I knew a bunch of my fraternity brother whom many I had not seen in ~5 years would be there. The reality was that pretty much all save 2-3 from my class where there, and we had a good time. Its funny to see these guys now as Doctors, Lawyers, or having other successful careers. There were times when I wondered if any of them would live to see 30. Everyone looked good too. Father time has been kind to us.

Speaking of successful careers. One of my buddies Dan G has an interesting story. He dropped out of school after our sophmore year because he wasn't doing well in his classes. I think he was pre-law or something which was a mistake given his character. He was the freest of spirits and it was a bad fit. He moved to Missoula Montana "because it looked cool in 'A River Runs Through It" to deliver Pizzas. He kept in contact, and we were able to convince him to come back to school after a year and try a different course of study in the arts, so he took us up on it riding his Motorcycle back to Atlanta in the dead of winter (think Dumb and Dumber). He started taking theater type courses, and actually excelled at it. Turned his grades around and graduated with the rest of us after busting his hump taking a heavy load and summer courses. Anyhow, he has had some random roles on screen, and has a steady job with a theater group that pays the bills. He is most famous for being Luke Wilson's Ass double in 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend.' It was good to see him still doing what he is passionate about.

So many, many, many drinks later, I caught a cab home (wife left early) and hit the hay at 3am. Not ideal for a long morning ride. Despite my efforts to keep the hangover bug away, I was not so lucky, and spent the day yesterday eating and drinking on my couch while watching football.

I'm back at it today though, I promise.

A week from Today, I'm taking my family to Puerto Rico for 6 days. We're going to do a bit of beach sitting and reading mixed in with some sight seeing. I'm told there is a National Park on the island that is worth seeing, and old town San Juan is neat to tour. Let me know if you have recommendations. We'll be staying on the east side of the island, but will have a car. I plan to read Greenspan's 'The Age of Turbulence,' and if time permits, 'The Paleo Diet for Athletes.' I'm pretty sure many, many, many drinks are not part of the diet, but you never know.

I'll be making my Ironman World Championship Predictions later this week, so check back for those.

And now, for my weekend observations:

- Am I the only one who doesn't know the words to Journey's 'Don't Stop Believe'n?'
- White guys can't dance
- Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders can (First hand witness at the wedding. Thats right!)
- I have no sympathy for the Chicago marathoners who crumbled in 88 degree weather. Welcome to Oct in Texas.
- A 45,000 person marathon is a recipe for disaster.
- Congrats to David on his 2nd Half IM finish in 7 weeks.

Hoops Lose Again

I went to the US Open Cup Finals last night at Pizza Hut Park in Frisco Texas. For those who don't know, I am a bit of a soccer fan. I had a room mate one summer in college who was on my school's varsity soccer team, and it happened to be the summer of the 1998 World Cup. I watched all of the Cup games with him, and he gave me some insight on strategy and the star international players. with that background, I was soon hooked.

My favorite side here domestically is FC Dallas, and I try to go to a handful of games every year. FC Dallas (aka the Hoops) played host to the New England revolution last night, and lost 2-3. For the most part, it was an entertaining game. The highlight in my mind was the return of Kenny Cooper, the young Dallas native striker who was returning from a fractured Tibia. He only played the last 20 mins and didn't do much, but it was good to see him back. He was given a standing ovation as he entered the game by the fans in the know.

Training is going alright this week. I missed my swim for the second week in a row last night in order to go to the game. Since I have to be home tonight so my wife can go to Bunko, and got home too late last night to allow for an early rise this AM, I'm taking my rest day today and will do my run and lift tomorrow.

This weekend, I've got another long run and ride planned. My good buddy Woody is getting married on Sat, and I'll see some College friends I haven't seen in years. I'll have to put myself on hangover watch on Sat night so that I can still get out there for the ride on Sun.

Have a good weekend everyone. If your training this weekend, go get it.