Satan

I went for a jog this evening and was pleased to come upon some sidewalk-chalk graffiti. Written in the middle of the street (in pink, mind you) was "I love Satan". Kids these days...

Tony's Iron Man

There’s this guy I know, Anthony Lombardi. We call him “Tony Lombardi” for short. I met him freshman year of college, and we wound up living together sophomore year… and junior year… and senior year. I couldn’t get rid of the guy! After college we kept in touch via the Internet, and we even saw each other in person every so often.

In line with his competitive trajectory, Tony announced he was going to be competing in an Iron Man this coming August in Louisville, Kentucky. By competing in this race he will honor the memory of his deceased friend, Jared, and raise money for the scholarship fund in his name back in their hometown of Southington, Connecticut.

Since I work in TV, Tony approached me about filming a mini-documentary of sorts detailing his journey to the Iron Man and why he’s doing it. Up for the challenge, I agreed. Together, we approached our alma mater, Marist College, about borrowing a camera for the race and they obliged. They were beyond generous and are letting us borrow a camera, mics, tri-pod, etc. from now until September. An ex-coworker and current friend of mine, Brian Epstein, agreed to handle editing duties.

We’ll be shooting some training footage and interviews throughout the summer, culminating at the race over Labor Day weekend. If I get any great still shots, or something worthwhile comes up, I’ll throw it up on here. If you wish to keep up to speed on Tony’s training you can check out his blog. Wish him luck.

Philadelphia Marathon

I did it. I officially signed up for my first marathon. I have 192 days to prepare myself to run 26.2 miles. That seems very reasonable, and I'm not scared. I'm actually kind of excited. If it was up to me the race would be sooner. Alas, it is not.

I feel like I could run a marathon this month. That being said, I need to decide if I'm going to train to complete this thing or if I'm going to train to kick ass. I'd rather kick ass, but I also like to drink beer. We'll see how it goes.

Broad Street Run

On Sunday May 4th I ran my second race ever: The 29th Annual Broad Street Run in Philadelphia. My last race, the Great Aloha Run, was 8.2miles; the Broad Street Run is 10miles. It’s not much of a difference, but it’s enough… especially when I haven’t ran a race in 2 years. I was in a lot better shape in Hawaii, and I hadn’t realized that until I was assessing my training.

That being said, I did much better than I hoped to do. My goal was to come in under 1hr 20min. If I came in 1hr 20-25 I’d be content, and anything over that I’d be disappointed. From mile 1-4.5, my left calf felt like dead weight. I had been dreading this, as this had happened often during my training. I guess I’m getting old. No matter how much or how little I stretched before a practice jog didn’t seem to have much correlation with whether my calf tightened during a practice jog. I stretched the hell out of my legs before the race began, and it happened anyway. I pushed through that pain/annoyance and it seemed to have gone away or disappeared into the back of my consciousness.

Also around this time I reasoned that, based on my stopwatch and some math, I could best my goal and come in under 1hr 15min. This seemed unrealistic before the race, but seemed very real at this point. Even though no one knew of my new goal besides me, I knew I would feel let down, even embarrassed, if I didn’t achieve that time.

After running around City Hall, the only part of the course that wasn’t a straight line, I could feel myself trying harder to maintain my 7:30/mile pace. I hit the 1hr mark at exactly the same moment I hit 8miles. It meant I had to do two 7:30 miles in a row to finish the race if I wanted to reach my goal.

I hit mile 9 at 1hr 8min, and knew I had just screwed myself. I didn’t expect to be able to run a sub 7min mile after clocking in at 8. I pulled it off though thanks to a combination of Strawberry & Banana Power Gel, adrenaline, old school Thursday coming through my headphones, seeing Barb on the sidelines cheering, and having a nice downward slope during the last 1/4 mile in the Navy Yard. I ran my last mile in 6min 48sec to come in at a final time of 1h4 14min 48sec.

How I finished:
Overall: 2,388 out of 19,112
Sex: 1,940 out of 9,821
Division (M 25-29): 364 out of 1,775
Age Grade: 59.3%*


*I would’ve qualified as a “Local Class” if I scored 60%

I also believe that this run could alternately be called the "Put 22,000 White People in the 'Hood and Watch them Flee to the Safey of the Navy " Run.

And as for Global Warming:

It’s real. Our lives will not be the same. It will be the end of an age.