where the hell is matt?

I am inspired by people's love to travel. A colleague of mine and his wife took a year off work and are biking around the world http://www.erck.org/ Also Matt is dancing all over the wolrd (http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/):

ice ice baby...

This weekend marked the 17 mile marker for me (~ 2 hours 40 minutes) . I have never been so sore in my life. knees/joints/muscles everthing was aching. the solution as crazy as it sounds was an ice bath. waist deep in ice water while wearing my ice-age-is-coming-jacket gloves and hat. The first 5 minutes felt like my feet were about to explode. Then everything just goes numb. its very nice :) but 10 minutes is all I wanted to spend on this. the pain goes away and the endorphins do the rest. I'm on a 3 day runners high today. absolute bliss.

called up my doctor cousin. He said something about capillaries and blood and cold and good. So medically this is all very sound.

oh and never carry pretzels with extra salt in your pockets while running. this gives chafing a whole new meaning.


blurk blurk blurk

The day the music died

... May 15th 2007. Because of new licensing fees internet radio, internet radio stations will all but shutdown operations. We are talking npr, pandora, this is no good.

http://www.savenetradio.org/ read more here. I dont know why there isnt more buzz on this. I'm sad today.

Licensing killed the (internet) radio star...

310 miles ...

I was doing some math and I've run 310 miles since February. Thats around 100 odd miles a month. Apparently when you're training for an iron-man thats your weekly mileage. and if you're Dean, thats your daily mileage :-)

Here's a thought, I should run from lahore to islamabad. Thats about 370 km on the motorway, 290 km on the old highway (GT Road). So I'm roughly looking at 230 miles. I could run 10 miles a day (very aggressive for me) to finish in about a month. There have to be lots of stops in the middle and no porta-pots ... hmm. this actually sounds doable. To the wanderers on this page, is anyone interested? Just nod if you can hear me.

Official results - whidbey island half

Chip Time: 2:13:42
Gun Time: 2:14:57
Pace: 10:18
Position in age group: 59/76
Overall position 768/1289

Race Summary
number of finishers: 1289
number of females: 815
number of males: 473
average time: 02:14:29

I'm in the 40th -50th percentile, not too bad for a beginner...

my stop watch results:
00:24:04 - miles 1 and 2 plus restroom break
00:07:55 - mile 3
00:10:17 - mile 4
00:10:16 - mile 5
00:09:53 - mile 6
00:10:25 - mile 7
00:09:37 - mile 8
00:10:10 - mile 9
00:09:55 - mile 10
00:10:16 - mile 11
00:09:57 - mile 12
00:09:58 - mile 13
00:00:53 - mile 13.1
total 2 hours 13 minutes 41 seconds

Half Marathon - Done!

2 hours 15 minutes (gun time) which is of course prone to error :-) My stop watch says 2:13 ;) my chip time should be close. I got a finishers medal and everything. I ran with two of my team-mates (Eric/Yi). All of us were pretty comfortable doing 10 minute mile paces which was great. We screamed the mile numbers as we crossed the markers! It was a beautiful day and we ran next to the whidbey coast. couldnt has asked for a more perfect first race. I wasn't quiet anticipating the hills though.

The full marathoners had a killer hill around mile 5 and they got to run over deception pass. I tried walking over it and it made me dizzy :)

But this isnt even the big news! I met Dean Karnazes!!!! My running hero, my main motivation for taking up running. The ultramarathon man himself! He was supposed to show up for the pasta dinner the night before but couldnt make it. However, he made it to the race. Very cool guy.

I made sure I hit the lap-time on my stop watch, I'll post the results here tomorrow.

Endurance Sports

Speaking of endurance sports, I'm hooked onto NINJA WARRIOR! Named Sasuke in Japan where it has been airing for the past 10 years (?) is probably one of the best "reality" shows out there. The obstacles the participants have to overcome are insane! and one mistake you are out.

trivia:
Unlike all the other shows out there, you have to finish all four stages to become NINJA WARRIOR! and boy its hard, in the entire history only 3 people have successfuly cleared it. I think Sasuke was a famous legendary ninja and the shows pays homage to the great one. In the US it airs on G4 tv every weekday right before AOTS (which rocks btw)...

And now my favorite, Makoto Nagano.

Super Mario Brothers

ok, so this isnt really related to the running, but zack kim is a rocker!

$3,906.00

That is my fundraising total as of today! And that is the minimum I committed to raising (actually it was $3900). 75% of this goes directly to cancer patient services or to cancer research. 100% of anything raised above this total goes to these causes. If any of my sponsors are reading this, I cannot express my gratitude for your support, but I will try. I'm very touched by the support and encouragement people, both strangers and friends alike, have given me. So thank you very muc. and now I'm roaring to go!

I got my official registration for my San Diego Marathon as well as my whidbey Island half. Very excited, I am! May the force be with you...

Inspired

After my saturday morning 11 mile run, i was planning to take a chill pill today, untill i saw this. I had seen "Team Hoyt's" story on hbo but a friend sent this to me the other day. This is a very inspiring story. Inspired me to run another 5 today.

The sports illustrated article is here: http://cjcphoto.com/can/

"Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in Marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a Wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and Pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day."

watch the video, gives you pause... right before you head out for your run :-)