Fat Man Trying

12/02/2007

What the hell!

With a little luck from the weather and if I stay healthy, it's doable.

So, how did we get here?

Jan 82.4 (Houston Marathon)
Feb 83.8 (Cowtown Half)
Mar 116.2 (back to back Half's at Seabrook)
Apr 62.1 (First of the month Hogs Hunt 25K, the rest of the month I was tired!)
May 88.3
Jun 87.1
Jul 90.3
Aug 61.9 (Three weeks)
Sep 49.9 (Two Weeks)
Oct 97.2 (Decided to push it)
Nov 81.5 (Three weeks)

Total 901

Yesterday was the 1st and I got in 6.12 miles so the log says 907 or 93 miles to go with 30 days left. I'll be resting most Sundays this month.

Wednesday is normally a rest day but for the next couple of weeks at least, I'll be doing a couple of miles just in case. I've got two trips to Dallas and several holiday parties this month. I'm going to bank miles when I can.

I'm going to keep this all in one post for now.

12/03/2007

6.12 today and the log says 913 (surpasses last yrs total) with 28 days to go.

12/05/2007

5.3 Yesterday and the log says 918. Seems like a long way still to go right now...

12/06/2007

Took yesterday off to rest. Really felt like the right thing to do.

Did 5.3 today so the log says 924 with 25 days to go.

12/07/2007

5.4 today and the log says 929.

I finished up the run with a one mile 2/1 and it clocked out at 11:31... I believe thats my fastest ever timed mile!

12/08/2007

6.89 today. Mostly easy miles and it really felt good to drop it down a bit. The log says 936.

12/10/2007

5.3 today and the log rolled over to 941. It was a good run, too! I like those types of days!

12/13/2007

6.12 Tuesday and 6.12 today, Thursday, so the logs reads 953 with 17 days to go.

12/15/2007

Getting to today I felt was the first big hurdle. After today, I'll have 5 travel days so I really wanted to push it in order to put myself in a good position. Yesterday was 6.88 and today was another 6.88 so the log reads 967 with 15 days to go. Which will really be more like 9 or 10.

I'm happy.... the last three weeks have been big mileage weeks for me, 29, 29, and 31 and I've squeezed about as much as I could out of these old bones.

12/20/2007

4.59 Tuesday, 5.36 Wednesday, and 3.83 today, so we are up to 981 now with 10 days to go. It's actually closer to 6 or 7 with travel figured in.

12/22/2007

6.12 yesterday and the log now says 987.

I'm skipping today as we've decided to leave early for Dallas, plus, the body once again let me know this morning that it just doesn't like 5 days in a row. If I don't get any miles in Dallas, I've got 6 days to work out 13 miles. Fingers are crossed!

Happy Holidays everybody!

12/28/2007

Well, I wasn't in Dallas long before I was knocked on my ass with a 103 degree temperature. Seems I picked up the flu bug somewhere. The only good news was it did solve the Christmas meal dilemma for me. I slept through that and all the present opening, etc. It really sucked. I don't do sick well. And, I haven't been sick since the heart attack so it's been awhile.

Anyway, I managed to get out there yesterday and today and at least walk some miles. I got 3.08 and 5.35 so I'm at 996. I really hope to be done with this tomorrow. Hopefully I'll feel better in general and about all this tomorrow!

12/29/2007

4.59 today and the log reads 1000!

Done! WooHoo!

OK, I'm glad thats over. lol

Not sure I'll ever fall prey to an annual mileage goal like this one again. At least not until I'm more than comfortably where I want to be base and pace wise. Lot's of pluses and minuses to trying to keep it in reach... in the end, maybe a tad more minuses.

Still, I won't lie... I am proud that I did it. It was an accomplishment when I got 398 miles the first year as well. It's all very relative. Many runners do 1000 or more miles per quarter. That will never be me and I'm more than OK with that. We are all an experiment of one.

And now, there is a very large beer and a nice cigar waiting to spend the rest of afternoon with me!

I started keeping a running log pretty much right out of the hospital. When I got the bike in Feb of 06, I started tracking the miles on that too. I'm obsessive about it. I love to watch the miles snowball slowly but surely into bigger numbers.

Yesterday, I hit 3000 on my running miles. When tossing in my 1210 bike miles, thats 4210 miles total. I was playing around with mapping and thats pretty much the distance from my front door to the front door of the Blue Loon Bar in Fairbanks, Alaska.



That mapping it out thing really put in in perspective for me! I knew it was a long way, but I was thinking Seattle or something like that. It's amazing how fast it adds up once you get the courage to start.

Where I run pretty much everyday, it's a 3/4 mile loop around a lake. When I was done yesterday and walking back toward my bike and thinking about all this, one of the older guys thats out there walking every day got off the loop and headed toward the parking lot and then when he got even with the opening in the fence, he spun around and headed back for the loop. He's got to be 80 and he's always giving it hell... as we're passing, he's chuckling and he says, "I can't seem to find the finish line!" I laughed and said, "you know, thats probably a damn good thing!"

While sitting back drinking a pint last night, I couldn't get away from that "finish line" comment..

What a journey.

Seize the day!

This Post details all the reasons why and there were many.

Mini Hogs Hunt 25K report

It was definitely a last minute thing. When I found the race and all it's details online, the cutoff date for being guaranteed the shirt and finisher award had already passed. I emailed Paul Brown, the race director, and asked if it was too late and if it wasn't, was it also possible to pick up the race packet that morning at the event. He answered back within minutes and said all was good and I could probably wait till the morning of the event and still get all the bling. Of course I didn't wait and signed up then.

I had always heard that trail running events were much more low key than the big road races. A lot of the people putting on the events are other runners whose primary goal seems to be nothing more than trying to keep a circuit of events going for themselves and their friends. "Hey, you organize one there and I can run it and I'll organize one here and you can come run it!" They aren't typically a charity deal and most of the events names don't lead off with Chevron, LaSalle Bank, ING or something corporately similar. Don't get me wrong, I love doing those types of events... there is just more of a purist or grass roots feel to some of the trail running events. The bibs were tiny and had nothing but a number printed on them. Red numbers for the 25K, black for the 50K.

It was a slop fest.



and a helluvalot of fun!

Where to start....

Maybe a recap is in order so my mental state of instability about this is semi-understood.

The 2006 Walt Disney World Half Marathon was my first event longer than a 10K. That same weekend they also have a full marathon. If you finish the half on Saturday you get a Donald Duck medal. If you finish the full on Sunday you got a Mickey Mouse medal. If you did them both you earned the highly coveted Goofy Medal. At least for me it's highly coveted and I know some others who feel the same way. There are also plenty who say the medal's name sake fits.... you have to be goofy to even try it.

Saturday after we finished the half, let me tell you, we were bad ass's walking around those parks proudly wearing our Donald Duck medals! OK, so truth be told we had parked our battered bodies in the Rose and Crown Pub and were drinking like a bunch of landlocked fish... but hey, we were still bad asses with our Donald Medals none the less!

Sunday afternoon rolls around and the people who had finished the full start showing up in the parks with their Mickey Mouse medals and let me tell ya.... bad assedness in the athletic world can be very fleeting. As sore as I was after that half marathon, I could not imagine ever running 26.2 fucking miles. Clearly these freaks of nature had one upped us all with their Mickey Mouse medals.

I was I admit, just a little jealous.

I recognized that look and feeling. It's one of those things typically only achieved in sports that you can't explain to anybody who hasn't been there and done that.

Now, I was really jealous.

I did the Seabrook Lucky Trails Half Marathon last year. Frankly, it wasn't a good day for me. My issues had nothing to do with the event itself, it is a very well run event. It was the heat and some medications I was taking at the time that combined to really kick my ass. I was still under a "do not exceed" heart rate order and it got high and it wouldn't come down while I was on my scheduled walk intervals. I ended up walking quite a bit of the last 2 miles. Now, as you know I'm really slow on a good day.... still, I had been able to finish my 3 previous Half's in (barely) under 3 hours. Not here. It was my first Half to go over 3 hours. I had been told that trails were slower, but all in all it wasn't a real positive experience that I was looking forward to ever repeating.

Fast forward to this fall and the organizers came up with their own version of the Goofy Challenge. They christened it The Lucky Trails Challenge. But, they tossed in a nice wrinkle! Since they would be running their traditional Half and Full on Sunday, you could choose to do “just” a Half each day.

And then, I saw my first Goofy medal. Oh man... It wasn't just the medal itself that stood out.... and it's not the medal itself really... truth be told the Mickey is the only decent looking piece of hardware in that bunch... the Goofy ribbon was orange. The Donald and Mickey medals were attached to blue ribbons. Talk about standing out in a crowd! That orange ribbon could be seen for a looong way when you were used to seeing all that blue.

When you passed by people with their Donald's and Mickey's you'd give a knowing nod of shared accomplishment and it would be returned in kind. When a Goofy medal holder came by most gave them a little more room and actually verbalized something. Like, "Good job,” “Congrats,” or “Awesome!" They truly did deserve more than a simple wink and a nod.

I was standing in a gift shop in Downtown Disney waiting on some friends when a guy came up wearing a Goofy medal. I said, "Congrats." He made eye contact and smiled and said "Thanks! You too." I wasn't even wearing my medal! I'm sure he had said it enough times that afternoon that at that point it was just automatic.

He stopped to look at something and I had to ask, "So,what was it like?" He slowly looked up, but not at me. He was focused on something only he could see way off in a distance. He smiled while shaking his head slowly from side to side and said... "man........ it was brutal." He limped off still smiling and his thoughts were clearly somewhere very far away.

This was a totally a last minute thing. We drove up on Friday afternoon and headed to the Expo to register and pick up the packet. Those of you hitting Expos need to look for a "new thing." Car manufacturers are setting up and giving away hats made of tech material in exchange for spamming info. Hummer was in Houston and Austin and Saturn was in Ft Worth. These are nice hats and hey, who doesn't want to walk around with Hummer emblazoned across your forehead!? Bring your mate and get two!

Hats, that is....

Anyway, the Expo was set up in downtown Ft Worth at Sundance Square. Since Sundance Square is mostly an open air venue, they had erected tents to house all the happenings. We registered and paid and made one loop through the Expo tent and got the hats and left for Dallas. It was late Friday afternoon and we were trying to beat the afternoon traffic.

Downtown Ft Worth looked like it would have been a great place to spend the rest of the day. You couldn't swing a dead cat around without hitting a bar or a grill or a pub. Things were already hoppin and we both were tempted!

I went into this race thinking this one is going to be all about simply cruising along and smelling the roses. Since I had not planned to do this event, I had not done a taper. I had gone 11.5 miles the Saturday before and already done two pretty normal weekday runs before the opportunity to do it presented itself. I also didn't have a clue what the course was like other than it would be scenic and much hillier than anything I had ever done. The forecast was decent so I thinking this was to be a true "fun run" for me. Get some bling and see a new course... good things, man, good things!

sorry, it's another novel...

On the same day I would run my first Full Marathon, the winner of the Half Marathon ran a record setting blistering 59:41. Under one hour. If my math is right, I was at mile 5. something when he finished. I read a lot about how this was the perfect weather for a marathon and for all those finishing in the first 4 hours, I bet it was nice!

As far as the rest of us semi-mortals were concerned...

Early in the week, all the talk was about the possibility of some nasty cold and potentially icy weather. Looking back, it was a actually a decent distraction. It became pretty much my only focus with the forecasters changing everything every hour. All the way to the last minute, really. When we left Katy early Sunday morning to head in, 40 miles NW of here it was down to 38 degrees and raining. I wore my heaviest long sleeve shirt and long running pants. I had a cheap light rain coat and a fleece vest that were on deck if I decided to start with them and then possibly pitch them. I also had a bag filled with warmer weather gear just in case. Exiting the car it was immediately apparent how much warmer it was than where we had just left only 20 miles away. I took it as a sign that the front would be here soon.

Looking around at all the other runners, I was one of the few who was banking on colder weather.

We didn't go into the convention center since it was warm and we had parked closer to the start line. We ended up spending quite a bit of time trying to circumvent the 8' tall fence they had erected along the curbs. Finally found an opening and I headed for the start and Georgia moved back up closer to the actual starting line to watch.

My goals for this event were basically "do no damage" and "smell the roses." Time wise, there was the whole 6 hr cutoff issue. I talked to a race official at the Expo because of the then predicted heat. It went something like this....

me, you guys keep saying you have to average a 13:45 but counting corral time that could be off quite a bit... I mean if you place yourself correctly at the back of the corral it could take you 8 minutes to cross the starting line and a 13:45 wouldn't work.

fascist nazi like guy, "Correct."

a few moments of silence passed...

me, "So, you're saying I'll be past the cutoff time if I followed your quoted time of 13:45 if I'm not physically standing on the actual physical starting line elbowing all the Kenyans out of my way until the gun goes off?"


fascist nazi like guy, "You have to at some point catch up to the gun time and then you'll need to pace at 13:45 to avoid the cutoff."

me, "You aren't going to figure in how long it takes to get everybody across the starting line and then start the cut off clock? I mean why didn't you just say the cutoff is at 1:00 pm?"


fascist nazi like guy"Correct."

In most of my previous events, pacing has been a big issue for me. I typically go out too fast, often by as much as a minute or more. When the gun went off and we started creeping toward the starting line I kept telling myself to just go with the flow and not jump and dart around through the crowds like a monkey on crack and wear yourself out.

And here is the novel we'll call the report.

The night before the race, I got all my stuff together and laid out and hit the sack. Did not sleep well at all. Maybe caught an hour or so of sleep. I've really had a lot of doubts about all this especially since the 16 mile training run had been such a disaster. If I were to try and describe the thoughts my mind was racing between on a something akin to a sliding scale, the low side would read “I'm going to die” and the high side would read “I'm going to kick this things ass!” So, yeah... I was a tad restless! I finally gave up trying to sleep and turned on the TV. It was actually a welcome distraction.

At 4:00AM I finally got up and started the process.

The temps were in the low 40's and the talking heads were forecasting light rain and highs reaching the low 50's by the end of the race. I am going through a dose of antibiotics right now so the Dr. had ordered full coverage clothing including a billed hat so the decision about what to wear was pretty much made for me. It wasn't what I wanted to wear for these temps but luckily the temps were mild enough that it didn't become an issue. Seeing the radar, it was clear the rain was coming so I tossed a light rain jacket into the already well stocked “just in case bag” Georgia would have with her.

Had a great weekend at Disney doing the Minnie Marathon. I was one of only about 50 males in 1500 women race. It was actually pretty fun. I ran with two good friends who have been out battling this health thing for pretty much the same amount of time I have.

One of them was overcome with the effects of food poisoning at about mile 2. We weren't sure what it was that morning. She hadn't been in temps that high in a while and we were thinking it was heat related. She really suffered but persevered with the help of the Disney staff to the finish line. What guts!

I'll try to get a report done sooner or later.

Spent the last couple of days getting back out on the 3/2 routine. Lot's of stuff seems to be getting in the way. If all goes well, even more stuff is on tap for being in the way for early next week.

For the first time in almost a year my dad and I have a fishing trip scheduled back here in Texas. He really seems to be doing good. I honestly don't care if the wind howls and it pours down rain, it will be fun to just get back to the coast with him again.

One more race before the season ends.

Sounded good, right? It was cheap, $45 bucks and not too far from the house. About an hour and 15 that early in the morning. This one also sounded a little unique. All but the first mile was to be run on trails. If you were doing the Half, you did two loops on the route, the Full would be of course four loops. (Don't ask me how they measured it out, but you never were back on that first road mile part of the route after your first loop.) Thoughts of hardware danced around in my head and I of course signed up!

Hate to start off with a bitch right off the bat but I was told "the resources were too thin" and there wouldn't be packet pick up race day morning. I should have known that was bullshit. I wasted the whole afternoon going into Houston to pick it up only to see a full set up there race day morning with 4 people working the table and only one person "stretching the resources so thin" picking up a packet.

Let's see, three hours or 2 minutes... which would you have preferred?

Bastards.

OK, that small bitch out of the way... it was a great packet! T shirt, socks, koozie, brown rice, skin lotion, discount coupons, etc, and the bag itself was some kind neato keeno nylon sack with straps like a backpack. First class all the way!

The guy at the pick up was super nice and friendly. With it being limited to just 500 peeps they would have no trouble filling the slots with only half the attempt to satisfy but they do clearly want to go the extra mile.

Race Day

This race appealed to me for several reasons. First, there was the course. White Rock Lake is a very nice venue in the Dallas area and it's well appointed with paths and facilities for runners and cyclists. It's also surrounded by some really interesting homes ranging in value from moderate to holy shit.

I think I've read elsewhere that the paths circling the lake are around 8 miles total. There are at least 4 marathon length events that I know of in Dallas that make White Rock part of their routes. Based on the amount of painted distance markings on the paths.... different colors in different directions and obviously taken from many different starting points.... I'm sure there are lots and lots of 5 and 10k's there as well. With only an 8 mile loop there can be large parts of the course that aren't around the lake.

One of the other reasons I chose this event was logistics. Georgia has a very dear friend... a former college roommate... who lives about a mile from the starting line. She and her husband are working musicians who have almost no weekends off. I had already made a mental note about several of the White Rock races and when they let Georgia know they weren't working that weekend, we jumped at the chance to head up and do the race and hang out.

Georgia and I met in Dallas and there are other old friends still there we enjoy seeing as well.

I'll do some comparisons to Disney simply because it's an easy frame of reference for me.

The central point of the event would be The George R. Brown Convention Center which is in downtown Houston. It's a nice well thought out facility.

The Half and Full as well as a 5k would be held together on Sunday, January 15th. They opened the Expo at 11:am Friday and it would be open all day Saturday as well. I went early Friday . Packet pick up was pretty simple. Same set up as Disney except there was no pinch point to get to the numbered tables. There wasn't more than three people in any line I saw. The swag for the event was billed to be a participant T-Shirt, a finishers T-Shirt, and of course the much coveted Medal. They gave you the participant shirt along with your bib numbers and chip. Not a bad shirt.

Because the half broke away from the full at two different points on the route, the half participants were given a small "Half Marathon" bib to wear on your back so if you were to miss a turn, they could grab your ass and spin you back in the right direction. They actually had a good set-up and you really had to be off in lala land to miss the variation points. No doubt you wouldn't have made more than 10 steps in the wrong direction.

The EXPO

The Expo in comparison to Disney was huge. I'd guess close to 100 or more exhibitors. I'm betting this is more the norm than Disney's. The room Disney uses isn't for conventions and it's tiny. Pretty much all the major and minor shoe and apparel manufactures were there. There were also several blow out runners clothing and gear vendors offering "Nothing more than $9.00!" Same types of places were setup selling close out shoes at $25 to $50. All these places had lots and lots of inventory and all were doing brisk business. There were also lots of "info for prize" booths too. Give them info so they can spam you then spin the wheel and win a prize! Some like SW Air were just spin and win. Lots and lots of T-Shirts and hats and various other swag was available. There were probably 20 booths of people trying to lure you to their races all held in far off and exotic places. I found myself spending most of my time checking these booths out. They are all keenly aware that some of us are nothing more than a bunch of pathetic Medal Ho's cause each event's finisher medal is prominently on display.

Yep, we've all read it before...

DON'T TRY ANYTHING NEW ON RACE DAY!!!!!!!!

What the hell do they know!?

SO, Polar was at the expo with their new fangled heart monitor computer thingies (RS200sd) and being the gadget whore that I am, well, at first sighting my nipples got plenty hard!

This thing would tell you your current pace in miles per hour, PLUS, you could set up an interval timer to beep when you wanted to... well...do something at different intervals!

You could also download all of your everyday exercise data to your computer.... which would fit in well with my future plan to document daily heart rate stuff and lay it on the good dr and say "see! Shall we change some meds here, huh, huh??!" You know, all those things you try to rationalize when you are spending a couple a hundred bucks you don't have on toys...

And who would have ever guessed they would be running a great show discount!!!

and yeah well.... yeah, I bought one!

I know you're all shocked.

So, the guy set it up to where it would do the beeps at my one minute/two minute run/walk intervals so IF I chose to I could wear it in the race. Well, I had told myself when I bought it that I shouldn't wear it in the race cause I wasn't even close to being at all familiar with it. Of course I had to check it out all day friday as we messed around MGM. It has so many functions there really is quite a decent learning curve. Still, I really felt like I had it figured out to just do the interval thing and the stop watch time thang. Hell, you know where this is going. I decided to not wear my old reliable monitor/timer and use the new one during the race.

ARRRRGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here was the big problem... I hadn't experimented with it while wearing the the heart rate monitor and it never donned on me that it would actually function completely differently and make such a huge difference! It doesn't make a difference with my old one. It is just a set of zeros if you don't have it on. What happens with this one is instead of the time being the big easily readable number on the face, the heart rate was the big number on the face. The time was now this liitle bitty number up in the corner. Probably a default thing that could have been dealt with had someone with any sense been reading more of the manual. Ok... maybe read any of the manual...

The second problem was the thing has pre-set heart rate "zones" or something in it based on age, weight, ect, and these little beeping alarms will go off if you are over or under the heart rate zone. So, right off the bat, it's dark as the inside of your pocket and even with the back light on I can't "read" the piss ant little time number and this thing is beeping it's ass off over the heart rate zone thing!

Was I a little confused?

Was I panicking?

Of course I was!

ARRRRGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, since the watch face looked so foriegn to what I had seen on it the day before, I ASSumed I had not got it to start the stop watch right. What would you have done then? I, of course decided to hit the start button again!

Did you know this thing can keep time on multiple laps?

Neither did I!!

I had now started an additional timer for lap 2! Did you know it will do the interval timing and beeping for lap two?

Neither did I!!

YEEHAW!!!


Oh, I was soooo not a happy camper and my anxiety level was fast approaching Sweat Condition Four.

ARRRRGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I pretty much just winged it till it got light and I could see. I had no idea what was going on pace wise and with it taking so looooong to get over the start line.... (19:20) .... and so long to work through the crowd, I ran a lot. I finally got a little relaxed when I got to the Magic Kingdom and was able to reorient myself to what the watch was doing and it wasn't too hard to follow it after that. I really wasn't even sure I got the timer turned off after crossing the finish line.... I think all pushing the start button again does after it's already running is start a new lap.

I mentally registered the rough time in my mind as I was looking for anything sub three hours. I still wasn't 100% sure at that time I had the timers working correctly from the start though, so I'm glad they got at least my finish time right. (2:57:47)

Man.... It was quite a day!

Did my second 10K this morning in Brenham.

Again, awesome weather.. 55 or so at the start, maybe 72 at the finish. Awesome route with great views... but HILLY.. man! It was all hills and of course you feel like you are always moving uphill. The last half mile was the biggest uphill climb of them all. Nice to get to the top AND be finished!

Let's see... this was a fund raiser for the athletic dept at the local High School. Good organization BUT, only the bathroom at the gym was open in the am and it was at least a half mile from the start. There were NO on course port-a-cans. Yep, none. My eyes were damn near yellow at the end.

I noticed my anxiety level for this one at the start was higher than even the first one and this one was pretty small... 200 runners maybe vs 1500 or so at the last one.

I had become convinced by scanning the crowd that I was the only walker there. I had asked via email about time and course support and all that and they were way beyond walker friendly.

Didn't mean I wasn't the only one to show up though!

So convinced was I, I told Georgia I might be calling her to come out and get me. She told me to shut up and gut it out. Well, ok, not exactly.

But, just as at the other one, you cross the start line and withn 50' you know you aren't alone. There certainly weren't many here... maybe 15 to 20, but more than enough.

The water stations were plentiful and manned by the High School athletes and their coaches. They were
all very encouraging and made sure to tell us at every station, "thanks for coming out for us!" We told them "Thanks for STAYING out here for us!"

Time for me was really slow... I'm figuring 1:40 or so. I decided to walk with a lady who struck up a conversation in the first mile. She was probably 60 - 65 or so and had been a marathon runner from way back.

She is recovering from running induced hip fracture and has been walking half's all over the country. This past january, she did half's on back to back weekends. She said it was "no big deal!"

Truth be told, On that course, I don't think I could have shaved much off that time without doing some jogging. She was such a delight to talk to and an absolute wealth of info as well, I was having too good a time to worry about pacing. Workout/exertion wise, this course was plenty!

Did I mention it was hilly!?

DAMN, it was HILLY!!

Since this exercise and walking thing is going to have to be a way of life for me, I thought I would see what kind of local events were out there.

Training and shooting for the WDW half is fun, hell, a lot of fun, but it's also a loooong way off and frankly, something a little more current was needed to drive away some of this daily monotony.

A quick search found The H-E-B Bayou City Classic, which was described on their site as a " 10k Race and Centipede Competition."

Centipede competition???

What the Hell!

It also said there would be a group of Belly Dancers and a group of Elvis's (or would that be Elvi?) and Los Rauncheros, who is described on their website as .....

"Texas' loudest garage band, featuring their infamous all tube, reverb drenched, psychodelicized gristle -n- guitar onslaught; married at the pelvis to a throbbing bass and pounding, naked ape jungle drums. It's the tone Mama warned you about; the tone that makes young girls squeal, old women blush; and full grown men ask "why? Why? WHY?" WHY NOT?" "

... all entertaining the runners along the route and I'm thinking... This ain't all that serious!

Which of course plays right into my wheelhouse!

I said to myself... I says self, you're typically doing around 15 miles a week with typically two 4 mile days and had in the last month or so been trying to do at least one 5.25 mile day... (the loops at the park are 3/4 mile) I always feel really good at the finish of these days... don't feel like I am on my last steps or anything even close so the distance seems good... you have all these questions about pace and heart rates and all kinds of other stupid shit and none of these are going to be answered until you actually get off your ass and do one of these things... and, hey, this one has Elvi and Belly Dancers and full grown men have been known to ask WHY NOT!?

So, pretending to be a grown man, I asked Georgia.. WHY NOT?