Merry Christmas

Just want to wish all my family and friends a Merry Christmas.

Also a great way to track Santa can be found at this site:

http://www.noradsanta.org/en/home.htm

Random Musings

So it has been about two weeks since my last post, and you ask "So Tim what has been going on?" Well let me tell ya...

- I am out of all of my fantasy football leagues. What a bummer. Next year I think I am dropping back down to two leagues as three is just too much to keep track of. My brother, however, whom I invited into one of my leagues and helped out with draft information is now in the Super Bowl. On one hand I am happy and proud, on the other I think he is a little punk. Just kidding.

- I am officially injured as the doc told me no running for two weeks. A tear is slowly running down my cheek while I am secretly smiling on the inside.

- The Toadies rock.

- The newly redesigned Austin Music Hall officially sucks. Where they did a great job removing the annoying pillars they did not really address the restroom issues, sightlines, congestion problems, etc. Way to drop the ball on that one. I am hoping when it is completely finished some of these issues will be addressed, but I am not holding my breath.

- I have never been a fan of roller coasters but let me tell you the Austin weather lately has surely been one. One day it is in the 70s the next in the 40s then another 70s then another 40s. Woohoo hang on. Nothing like it.

- Holy cow it is only one week until Christmas.

- Come on SP get off your butt and offer Carri the job already.

- It is hard to fill a post with just ramblings, especially if nothing exciting has happened.

- Congrats Triscuit for graduating. Or as I think your Dad would put it...finally graduating. I had a great time at your bash, as apparently you did to since you had to go nighty night at 8 PM.

- Happy Christmahanukwanzakah to everyone, or Happy Festivus for the rest of us, if that is how you roll.

Decker 20K Race Report

Is it possible to run more and still get slower? If so I think I have perfected it. At the beginning of all this training I was on pace to run a 10 mile race in 1:28, a few weeks ago I missed that by 5 minutes. Then yesterday my predicted time for a 20K was 1:51 and I finished at 2:07 a difference of 16 minutes. Hmm, I thought this training was supposed to be helping me.

Ultimately my goal is to PR in the 3M half marathon. Looks like I am gonna have to refocus over the next 8 weeks and start running more during the week. Bummer.

Anyway here are my splits for yesterday.

Mile 1- 9:45 with a pee stop
Mile 2- 9:38
Mile 3- 9:22
Mile 4- 9:36
Mile 5- 10:03 with a water stop
Mile 6- 9:46
Mile 7- 10:07 with a water stop
Mile 8- 10:09
Mile 9- 10:06 with a water stop
Mile 10- 10:51 many hills on this mile
Mile 11- 11:15 with a water stop
Mile 12- 11:59 with some walking

Additional splits

5K - 30:30.3, 9:48/mile
10K - 1:00:54, 10:03/mile
15K - 1:31:37, 9:59/mile
20K - 2:07:25, 10:22/mile

So my takeaways are...
1. Decker is a really hard course.
2. Considering the farthest I have run leading up to this was 10 miles, adding another 2.4 was pretty hard. This is evidenced by my crap times the final three miles.
3. It is not supposed to be 80 degrees in December.
4. Luckily I will be in town the next few weekends to do the long runs.
5. Is it cycling season yet?
5. The 3M is gonna be cake compared to this.

EAS 10 Miler - Revisited

Last night on our run Shorey, Carri, and I were talking about how we seem to be all over the map in our runs. One mile is at our goal pace, the next is too fast, and then the next is too slow. Repeat over however many miles we are running. We also marveled at how Wiley consistently nails his miles within a few seconds of each other.

So today I was revisiting the EAS 10 Miler results page to get my time and input it into the pace calculator to figure out what I want to run this weekend, and I was greeted with this little surprise.

Time for the first 5 miles - 46:30.5
Time for the second 5 miles - 46:29.5

So not only did I run a very slight negative split but in an actual race I was really consistent. Very shocking. So here is what I have learned...

YES, I am slow, and I am fine with that, but at least I am slow at a consistent pace. Woohoo.

Not Your Typical Thanksgiving

Above you will find your not so typical Thanksgiving plate. While there is turkey in the middle that is all that I would normally find on my plate for Turkey Day.

Items on the plate:

Turkey
Chilled Octopus Salad
Warm Pasta with scallops, shrimp, oysters, etc.
Ahi Poke
Purple Potatoes
Sweet and Sour Pork
Pork and Peppers and Onions

BTW this was my second plate. On the first I did have some mashed potatoes, stuffing, and sweet potatoes for the traditional items but also had:

Kim Chi
Seaweed Salad
King Crab Legs

Rain, Rain Go Away and Come back on...Sunday?

Yes, it rains even in paradise. After only getting a short amount of time on the beach yesterday we decided today would be our beach day. A full on day of nothing but beach. Of course making plans only leads to heartbreak as it has rained off and on all day. So we made the best of it.

About 5AM local time I was awoken by some pretty loud and recurring thunder. Luckily I went back to sleep and we woke up at about 7AM to a light rain. After breakfast the rain was still falling so we decided it was a good time to go for a run since the beach was out at least for a bit. We did an out and back of about 4 miles, and luckily today's course was relatively flat and my calf did not flare up.

Got back to the condo and the rain was still falling so we decided to do a little reading as we sat on the lanai and finished the books we had been reading. Luckily we got a brief break in the rain and decided to head to the beach. Of course once we got there it started raining again, so back to the condo. After a few more of these to the beach, then rain, to the beach, then rain, we decided what the heck and just sat on the beach in the rain. Finally it cleared up a bit and I did a bit of body surfing, while Carri sunned herself.

Now it is about 4PM local time and it is raining again. I guess that means it is time for a Mai Tai.

Maui Invitational

When Carri and I first talked about coming back to Maui it was because she could use three vacation days and we could be here for 8 days due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Our second reason was because Oklahoma State was in this years EA Sports Maui Invitational basketball tournament. After some slight deliberation we decided to go to the arena and see if we could get tickets to OSU's game against LSU. We found a guy selling tickets for $10 below face and we were in.

The game was held at the Lahaina Civic Center and this venue is very tiny. Basically bleachers on the sides and a few at each end and that is it. We sat at mid-court and were about 10 rows up from the floor with only 2 rows behind us. So this is essentially a small high school gym. This makes for a great place to see your team up close and personal.

Oklahoma State had a huge halftime lead and was able to hold off a barrage of three pointers by LSU to come away with a 6 point win.

Apparently Texas is the Big XII representative next year for this tourney and I highly recommend using the excuse of coming over to see the Horns for a Maui Thanksgiving getaway in 2008.