What Ale's me?

This fall is turning out to be a real challenge in terms of getting the consistent running in that I'd like to.

Work has been busy, and I've been doing a bit of traveling which was not anticipated.

Now I find myself sick and out of commission! I woke up with it on Friday and sitting here blogging on Sunday night, I don't think I've reached the apex of the sickness. I'm hoping I wake up tomorrow and things have made a turn for the better, but we'll see.

We had an arctic blast hit Dallas on Wed. It was 75 degrees on my way in to work, and by that night, temps were in the low 40s. A drastic change like that is bound to bring out the bug in you assuming you've already been exposed, and with my entire office and kids sick for the past month, it was only a matter of time before I succumbed.

I went out in 39 degree weather for a great tempo run on Thursday morning. That must have done it for me.

I was able to get an easy spin in on the trainer on Friday, and tried to go for a light jog on the treadmill tonight (Sunday), but I wasn't feeling it, and bagged it after 20 mins.

I had my eyes on taking my wife's entry into the white rock half marathon in 2 weeks and going for my sub 2 hr goal, but I've missed my long run two weeks in a row, and think I ought to stick to the original plan of shooting for the Houston Half Marry.

Happy Thanksgiving

Long time no blog, I know.

To be honest, I really haven't had a ton to report on. I took my family and my parents to Atlanta a couple of weeks ago. I was sitting on the couch on Wednesday trying to figure out what to do that weekend, and 24 hours later, the plans were set. One of the benefits to working for an airline is spur of the moment trips.

Some know that I lived in Atlanta from 1995-2003, and went to undergrad there. It's a town I'm very fond of for a number of reasons, so it was great to go back and visit.

We were shocked at how much had changed in the past 4 years. Tons of development in town. Urban revitalization at its finest I'd say. Certainly a real-estate developer/investor's dream.

On Sat morning, we headed over to Emory U., my Alma matter, to walk around campus. Like the rest of Atlanta, Emory has been building, renovating, and expanding at a rapid rate. It looks great. We stopped by the P.E. Center, which had a third floor added to the top of it over the last couple of years to check out a Varsity men's soccer game (Emory was crushing Carnegie Mellon U.) then peeked in on the pool and saw the 4 or 5 guys who didn't travel with the team to Savannah, GA for a swim meet that day finish up their morning workout.

I graduated in 1999, and every men's team record has since been re-written since I left. The oldest record on the books was Sebastian Popa's 200 Butterfly record set in 2002, which I witnessed him set. Other than that, they were all 6 mos to 2 years old.

The team went through a drastic change while I was a student. When I was recruited to swim there, it was a sleepy team that didn't field a full squad and had to fight it out for 3rd and 4th place (out of 8 teams) in our conference.

By my Junior year, we had begun transforming into a more "proper" team training more like I did in High School (basically more often, smarter, and harder) and results followed.

No one will admit this, but Emory is now a top NCAA swim program due to the efforts of former assistant Coach Jessica Berkowitz. She was hired during my sophomore year and overhauled the attitude, recruiting, and training philosophy of the team taking us from a team with one top 10 finish at the National Championships ever, to a consistent top 5 finisher and eventual runner-up National Champion (the women's team won a national championships in '06). Without her overhaul, we wouldn't have landed the recruits we began to land, and the head coach we eventually hired who was able to take us over the top.

During my senior year, the men's team won our conference championships for the first time ever bringing down the Johns Hopkins dynasty. That year, we ended up 6th at the National Championships, and we've been top 3 nearly every year since.

Let me be perfectly clear, I feel I had more to do with the success out of the pool than in it. I was a good High School swimmer, but never bettered my best times in my best events, the 100 and 200 backstroke while in college. My PR's were set when I was 17 years old. Luckily, I was good enough as a high schooler to be able to continue contributing and scoring as a collegiate swimmer. We had some amazing athletes who were the reason for the team's success, but I like to believe that as a captain that year along with my co-captain, that we were able to foster an environment that set us up to succeed, primarily by helping to change the attitude of the team from passive and self deprecating to aggressive and confident.

Visiting the pool that morning brought back fond memories for sure. That was the first place I ever saw my wife, and were our friendship began. My closest friends from undergrad were teammates. When I looked down from the bleachers into the water, it was strange. How many hours did I spend in that water? How many miles have I covered in that little 50 meter x 25 yard space? How much suffering did I put myself through in that space? How much was learned in that space? In a way, it was like digging up a time capsule and revisiting old memories.

So the trip to Atlanta was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to visit again.

US Men's Olympic Trials

The results from the Men's US Olympic Marathon Trials certainly fill me with emotions that scratch both ends of my feeling spectrum.

In January of this year, I ran the Houston Half Marathon. After completing the race, I met up with friends who were out on the course watching and they mentioned that the lead runner who passed them out on the course was all alone, American, and absolutely flying.

That runner turned out to be Ryan Hall, who went on to break the American Record in the half marathon that morning while becoming the first American to break the "Hour" in the half marry with a 59:43. If you've got 15 minutes, this video is a can't miss.



That was Ryan's first half marathon. He went on to run the London Marathon in the Spring (His first full marathon) finishing 7th in a very deep field with a 2:08.24, the fastest debut marathon for an American breaking a record held by Alberto Salazar and Alan Culpepper.

Last weekend, Ryan Hall won the Men's US Olympic Trials with a 2:09.02 out pacing Dathan Ritzenheim and Brian Sell by 2:05 and 2:37 respectively. A very convincing win.

The connection I made with Ryan being out on the same course in Houston with him (though over an hour behind) this past January and the excitement he generated by coming out of nowhere to bring American distance running back on the map will forever earn him a spot in my heart and mind as I am now a loyal follower and fan of his.

Transpose this excitement with the news that Ryan Shay, who trained with Meb Keflezighi and Ryan up in Mammoth Lakes with coach Bob Larsen for a time, passed away during his attempts to reach his Olympic dream this past Saturday, and you can quickly become overwhelmed with confusion and mixed emotions. Though I have not seen results of the autopsy, news that he was diagnosed with an enlarged heart at a young age and other heart conditions in his family lead me to believe that there may be a correlation.

I could write about how we should all be grateful for our health or to visit our physicians regularly to ensure all is well, but at this point it all seems to be trivial or cliche.

We all know why we do it. I look at people doing Ironmans, Ultra Marathons, those attempting to summit Everest, or even something as simple as swimming so hard you puke or faint the moment you stand upright after climbing out of the pool. I get it, and I would never question someone who aspired to push their body to the limit. In fact, I find it more frustrating listening to the lay person talk about how stupid or dangerous it all is. In my mind, not knowing whether or not you can or can't, and not knowing approximately where your limit is is not living.


Ryan Shay 1979 - 2007

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.