Terrifying Costume

This is what I wore into the office on the day I learned that people here don't dress up for Halloween. It is, in fact, my own personal vintage 1994 McDonald's uniform. The hat has it's own vintage 1994 grease stains. In any case, I'm glad I played it safe with this over the all-out Batman costume I bought for $5 after Halloween last year.

Even though no ones else in my department dressed up, I think people generally got a kick out of it. I did get several "Can I get fries with that?" type comments. There was a small fire somewhere in the building today (Jack-O-Lantern, perhaps?) so we had a fire drill. I got a lot of comments and looks in the parking lot, some from people thinking it was a funny thing to wear, some wondering what the hell a McDonald's employee was doing in the building.

Ironically, I did make a hamburger for myself last night. My main takeaways from my 2 years with Ronald were the ability to make an awesome soft-serve cone, and a firm grasp of the importance of higher education.

4:00.29

That's right- my official time for the Marine Corps Marathon: 4 hours, 29 seconds. I realize that overall it's a pretty good time, but darn it, I really wanted to break the 4 hour mark! So close, and yet so far. Actually, according to my GPS the race was closer to 26.6 mi (as opposed to the official 26.2), so it told me I finished the marathon in 3:57. That'll put a check in the moral victory column. When there was a distance discrepancy in the Lower Potomac Marathon Relay (supposed to be 14.1, GPS said 14.6), I figured they just marked it out wrong. But this race had a ton of curves, so I guess over the course of 26 miles being on the outside vs. the inside of turns could add up to a half-mile discrepancy. Oh well. I'll take 4:00.29.

There's a couple of fun sites to check the results. My "unofficial" chip times can be found here. Notice that this page gives me 4:00.33, whereas my "official" printout said 29 seconds. It's a small discrepancy, but it makes a big difference if you're rounding to the nearest minute! The RunPix site has a bunch of fun stats and graphs, like where I finished percentage-wise (I beat 74% of the men, and 88% of the women).

My biggest fear (crowded start) went unrealized, because I started at the very front of the second wave. So I was in a full run within the first quarter mile, and pretty soon I caught up to the slow people from the first wave. They put runners in order by what you claim is your expected finish time, and a lot of people are liars. There were plenty of people who didn't have a chance at finishing in that first wave. As such, I was passing people the entire race. It's not that big a deal (and actually kind of motivating) but it's kind of drag when you have to speed up, slow down and dart around to get by people. What was really annoying is when I would plan to run between a few people, and right as I approach they dart closer together, forcing me to basically halt, start again and go around. Sometimes people were just running 6 across, and there was nothing you could do but wait for the road to get wider.

Speaking of roads, this marathon was all over the place! Much of it was on the highway, which was nice. Some of it was right around the national mall, and in places it was only about 5 feet wide. I was looking forward to seeing all the DC sights in one day, but the only one I got a good look at was the Washington Monument. I mostly saw backs, spectators, and pavement. To their credit, the spectators were great- most were just cheering and shouting general encouragement ("This is what you trained for!" and "Pain is temporary- Pride is forever!" were popular ones) but some had their own boom boxes or instruments. One guy was blaring the Rocky theme, and everyone (me included) ran with their fists head mightily in the air as we passed. There were several little drum circles that added some atmosphere, and lots of high school bands, both of which thrilled me. If you put your name on your shirt people would yell out proper noun encouragement, so I might try that in the future.

Now I know what people mean when they say "hitting the wall" during running. I was clipping along fine, what with all the other runners and crowd energy. Around the 10 mile mark I even had a short discussion with some guys about how it felt like we just started. But somewhere between miles 18 and 19 it was like "Whoa- I'm done." Everyone said going into it that miles 20-24 are the hardest, and they were totally right- I think it's because you're dead tired, but the end isn't in sight yet. I would try to run, but the legs just wouldn't. The weird thing was that it kind of hurt to walk, because my legs were all crampy and sore. So there I was- too tired to run but it hurt to walk. I alternated for a while, watching the virtual partner catch up to me and thinking "So this is what failure feels like." Actually, I was about a mile ahead of the virtual partner at one point, but he pulled within a quarter mile there at the end. Once I entered mile 24, I got that finishing wind and ran it out- but I couldn't keep my 9 min/mi pace. About a 10 min/mi was the best I could muster. I ran all the way to the finish line, which was at the end of a brutal uphill stretch. All I was thinking was "I can stop after this." Maybe also "I wonder how much my treadmill is worth on eBay, because I'm never running again."

I passed the finish line, and made it about 10 yards before I had to sit down in the grass. The guy behind me crossed the line, and literally tumbled to his hands and knees immediately. The medics ran over to him and carried him off on a stretcher with an oxygen mask. Seriously. I sat for a few minutes while the volunteers repeatedly asked me if I was okay, then gathered up enough strength to walk over and get my finisher's medal. Then I sat down in the grass again, where friendly Marines and volunteers continued to ask if I was okay, so I must have looked fantastic. After I recuperated a little more with my space blanket and powerade, I went on to the worst part of the day- the exit.

Leaving the marathon was an absolute disaster. The entire field of competitors became one stagnant crowd creeping toward the exit. You were supposed to meet your party in the "link up" area, which was a bunch of flags with letters on them. In previous years I understand that this area was set up back in the park, but this year they combined it with the only exit. So, all the flags were staged on the (closed to traffic) highway overpass, which was maybe 30 yards long and 4 lanes wide, and also contained the stage with the 80's cover band. That's right- 34,000 runners and their non-running parties trying to meet up and exit on a stretch of concrete that was about a quarter of a football field. It took me over an hour of shuffling shoulder to shoulder to get within 20 feet of the "A-B" flag, and then all flow stopped. After not moving for the next 20 minutes, I borrowed a nice lady's cell phone to call Kate, who apparently was a little closer to the flag than I was. We met up outside the crowd, then tried again together. It's hard to state how bad the bottleneck was there- people were actually jumping the fence, running across the 6 lane (not closed to traffic) highway, and jumping the fence on the other side to speed up the process.

The metro was thoroughly clogged with runners as well, but not as badly as it was on the way to the race. Someone actually had to hit the emergency stop button on the escalator because the platform was full and people were still piling on- we ended up running up the down escalator to avert disaster! Did I mention that I hate crowds? By the time we got back to the hotel I was definitely getting less and less polite to people in my way.

This is a good time to give shout out to Kate- she was a great help to me this weekend. She did very well as my Sherpa (carrying my stuff while I was running). Let me tell you, if you ever want some free cheap shirts, pants, hats and gloves, just follow behind a marathon. People were tossing stuff left and right for the first several miles. One of the vendors there was even selling disposable pants and shirts- for 7$ each! You can go to Old Navy and get something cheaper than that! But, lots of people were wearing them. Anyway, Kate led me by the sleeve through the crowds after the race when I was too exhausted to walk and make decisions at the same time, and drove me home while I sat as still as possible in the car. Thanks again! Unfortunately that cell phone race tracker thing didn't work at all so she didn't get to take any action shots of me running, but given how I looked that's probably just as well!

All in all, I'll say that the marathon was an "experience." I'm leaning toward saying that it was real, it was fun, but it wasn't real fun. I trained a lot for this run, and it was hard. Even with all the preparation, running 26.2 miles is no picnic! I'll probably do another one in the future, once I have time to forget all the crappy parts and only remember the fun stuff, sort of like childbirth.
I have to believe that it's more fun if all you care about is finishing- then you could rest if you need to, walk a little more, and it wouldn't be nearly as stressful. Interesting note- there were 34,000 runners at the start, and only 20,934 finished. So like they say, just finishing is an achievement. Knowing that, I was in the top 21% of finishers, but the top 13% if you count everyone that started.

I'm going to lay off running for a few days. Yesterday I was generally sore all over, and this morning I was moaning trying to put on my socks and thinking "Who the hell's idea was it to run a marathon?" All that's really wrong right now is my one knee that's killing me- if it's not better by this weekend I'll have the medical types in Lansing take a look at it. I'll restate that I think anyone can run a marathon- the only thing you need is time. If you follow the running plan, you build up distance gradually, and every run is only slightly harder than the one before. Thanks again to everyone for the encouragement!

BTW: Sorry this took so long! My wonderful MetroCast internet has been in and out the last several weeks. I'll be putting up some pictures when it stops being crappy. In addition their tech support number gives you the "Doo-Doo-DOO! We're sorry, this number is no longer in service." I hate Southern Maryland.

Marine Corps Marathon - Final Pre-Thoughts

I'm gearing up for "The People's Marathon," and this will probably be my last post before the big day (Sunday, October 29). Thanks to everyone for the well wishes! I think I'm ready. I can't tell if I'm excited or nervous- probably both.

If anyone wants to know anything about the marathon, the homepage is here. There's a whole mess of fun links on there, like the interactive course map and remote runner tracking. If anyone is really that into monitoring my status, you can even have my progress sent to your cell phone big brother style, thanks to the champion chips.

I guess at this stage in the game the only thing I'm really concerned about is the very start of the race. I'm bib #29023, which is in the "Gold" wave, and we kick off at 8:40 am- all 18,000 of us. I'm told that it actually takes a few miles to get into a running pace. I'm a little afraid that if the start goes wonky it could throw me off right from the beginning, but honestly I usually run faster than the target 9 min/mile so I don't think it will be a problem. Plus, if you check the course elevation map, the only real height change is in the first 3 miles, where you rise and fall about 200 feet.

If you want to know anything else about the pain I'm about to inflict on myself, the final instruction packet is here. I'll try to have a nice little post up about the whole experience early next week. Wish me luck!

Black Alternates!

What did I tell you? Black on black looks tite, yo!

Seriously though, I only had the Colts to get me through this football weekend. They won, but we lost Mike Doss for the year, so that blows. Purdue's offense is usually their strong point, but they stunk Saturday. I hate to pile on the blame but it sounded like Painter (the QB) played a pretty big role in the loss. Nonetheless, I feel good about next year- most of our problems relate to having a young team that makes newbie mistakes- we should be a lot better next season.

At any rate, tonight Jamie and I are going to check out a good ole' haunted house, and then tomorrow it's back to work (which is, after all, the reason I'm out here).

Fall Classic 10k

I'm currently in Utah with Jamie, and I'm taking a chance to update this post while watching the Redskins try to paralyze Peyton Manning. Before my flight yesterday I took part in the Patuxent River Fall Classic 10k. This was the first 10k I've run in several months, so my only goal was break the 50 minute mark.

It was the perfect conditions, too: sunny, about 50 degrees, and not a whole lot of competition. As always, there were a ton of guys in the 30-39 age group, but I didn't see any younger guys. I started to think that I might have a chance at first- you might be thinking "Do you really want to win by default?" Well, yes. Yes I do. Turns out there was one 24 year old guy who looked to be in pretty good shape. I talked to him beforehand (his name was Richard), and he was like "Oh, I haven't run a race in 5 years. I didn't even know about this until yesterday." So I was thinking that I still had a chance. That was until the starting whistle when he took off like a freaking rocket.

So my trophy says "2nd Place Male 20-29 Yrs" and "2006 Patuxent River 10K Fall Classic." But that's not really important, because I finished in 45:20, which shattered my goal by a good margin. That breaks down to about 7:30 min/mi, which is pretty good for me. Richard ended up getting fourth overall, and first in our group. That made me #2 out of 2, but I took a little pride in knowing that I would have won the 50-59 or the over 60 age group.

The race was a nice little wind down for my taper week, next Sunday being the marathon. I'm sure I'll have much more to say about that later.

Does the NCAA Have Reservations?

If you speak to me on any sort of regular basis, I'm sure you've heard me rant about the NCAA's mascot crusade- mandating that colleges with Native American-derived mascots or nicknames drop them for something politically correct, lest they get sanctioned and/or not shown on TV. We could go on about this for hours, but the crux is this:

The NCAA is terrified of offending anyone- not because they're so caring, but because that might make them lose money. They have deemed Native American mascots to be offensive. However, studies have shown that in general, people of Native American descent don't mind such mascots. What we have is a bunch of rich white guys in suits that are so afraid of offending a small group of people that they're forcing thousands of people to change. But that's neither here nor there.

I have a more specific issue, which I first noticed on Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column (which, by the way, is the smartest football column I've ever seen). The NCAA has decided that the college of William and Mary's logo is offensive, and they have to change it. Why is it offensive? It has two feathers on it, which is apparently a stereotypical assault on Native Americans. That's a stretch for sure. But what makes this more outrageous is that the University of Utah has received no such order. Check out their logo!

Now seriously folks, what's the difference? Why is a U with two feathers acceptable when a WM with two must be changed immediately? I'll tell you why- because Utah is a 22,000 student school with a strong football team and a fairly big fan base. William and Mary, on the other hand, is a little Division II school with about 5,000 students. By going after them, the NCAA can act like they are enforcing the rules, without actually affecting a school (or a logo) that people care about. This appeals directly to my number one pet peeve: Half-assedness. If you're going to have a rule, enforce it on everyone.

Which brings me to my main point: Why are they only focusing on Native American mascots? There are plenty of other mascots based on indigenous peoples, including (but not limited to) the USC Trojans, the San Diego State Aztecs, Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns, and my #2 beloved Michigan State Spartans. How come it's okay to base savage mascots on these particular heritages, but not Native Americans? And lest we forget, the freaking Fighting Irish! Has their ever been a more offensive mascot that a little brawling Irish dude?

All I'm saying is if you're going to crusade against potentially offensive mascots, then do it across the board. Don't just pretend to care to appease people.

Motivation

I've been looking at that Motivations link on Kate's blog for quite some time, without actually clicking on it. So today I gave it a shot. Much to my delight, it wasn't actually a motivational page- it actually lets you make your own successory-type motivational poster! So here's the one I spent approximately 10 seconds on.
I sent it to Kate, who remarked that I should post it here. I said "I don't know, 2 posts about Cheesy Gordita Chrunches in the last few days?" She replied "If talking about the Cheesy Gordita Crunch is wrong, I don't want to know what right is." Point made.

Obligatory Purdue Football Post

I wanted this to just be a footnote to another post, but once I got going it sort of took on a life of it's own. Since neither Indy or The Evil Empire played this weekend, the Purdue victory made it 1 for 1.

Northwestern isn't exactly a football powerhouse, but at least we finally got a road win. Plus, at 5-2 with a 13 game schedule, we only need 2 more wins to qualify for a crappy bowl game. Normally I would feel pretty confident with Illinois and Indiana still to come, but Indiana inexplicably beat Iowa this weekend, who destroyed us. Could make for a good game.

Anyway, the main reason I write is that I listened to the 4th quarter on XM (after I was done sealing the deck), which of course was the Northwestern radio station's broadcast. That's one of the nuances of listening to games on the radio versus watching them on TV- the announcers are always incredibly biased to the home team. Purdue was up 24-10, with a 1st and goal on the 10 yard line with like 6 minutes left in the game. The next play was a short pass to make it 2nd and goal at the 5. Northwestern Radio Announcer #1 starts going off on Purdue! I'm going to paraphrase, but it was like "Now there is absolutely no reason for this. There is absolutely no reason to be throwing the ball when you're already up by 2 touchdowns with 6 minutes left in the game. I can't believe that we're seeing such a display of poor sportsmanship by Purdue here running up the score." Maybe you had to hear the guy- he was audibly agitated, like this was a huge personal insult by Purdue.

My first thought was that obviously, this guy doesn't watch a lot of Purdue football. I've seen us blow 2 touchdown leads in less that 6 minutes on several emotionally draining occasions. Additionally, 6 minutes is still a lot of time for any team! I mean, a turnover and a decent 2-minute drill can easily erase a two score deficit. Fortunately, Announcer #2 responded "I'm going to have to disagree with you here- if I were Purdue, I would definitely try to get some insurance points" and he went on to list a lot of the reasons I was thinking. The more I think about it, the more I disagree with Announcer #1.

On a side note, while digging up links for this post I noticed that the Wisconsin at Purdue game is going to be on ESPN Saturday, which will mark the second time this season (out of 3) that a Purdue game was on TV in Southern Maryland and I won't be able to see it. It's like ESPN has a rule that Purdue is only shown nation-wide when I'm on a plane to Utah.

The Cheesy Gordita Crunch is Back!

Tommorrow at lunch time, you'll know where to find me.

Hot? Apparently Not.

Several years ago (actually, right after college) Kate and I decided to put our pictures on Hot Or Not. For those you in the generation above me, Hot or Not is a website where people can anonymously and mercilessly rate other people's appearance on a scale of 1 to 10, or upload their own picture if they want to take it while they dish it out. It you haven't tried it, you should. It's incredibly addictive.

Anyway, Kate and I subjected ourselves to the best judges the internet has to offer. Back in the day, you could only have one picture so we each made two accounts. I had one with a picture Kate took of me that I hated, and one with a picture from my Purdue graduation that I really liked. Well, the picture I liked got a 7 point something (and I don't have it to show you), so we ended up swapping it for a picture of me that Dad took at Christmas a few years ago. The results?

Picture I don't like: 8.0

Not bad, but I just don't think that this picture looks like me. It looks like I have no chin, and I'm not even smiling. Actually, I'm kind of half-smiling, which is something I could never really pull off on purpose. Maybe it was helping me here.
As a side note, this picture did recieve a 10 vote- my only picture to ever do so. Moving on.


Picture I do like: 7.6

I think I like this picture because I think it looks like me. In general, I don't think I photograph well. So, it earns a 7.6. Lower than the picture that I don't think looks like me, but not bad.

So after these two pictures have sat on Hot or Not for like 4 years, I decided to throw in a new picture that I think looks good.

New picture: 2.8

That's right. A 2.8. Am I missing something? It's not like I'm offended that people don't think I'm hot, it's that this is so much lower than the others. When I checked it I had received 10 votes: two 5's, one 4, three 2's, and four 1's. Four 1's! That means that 40% of the people who viewed this picture thought that I was the lowest level of attractiveness they could comprehend! 40% don't think I could be any uglier! How can that be?
Again, I'm not hurt, I'm baffled.

Update: The score for this picture has crept up to a more respectable yet still ego-bruising 4.1. I have actually recieved some 8's and 9's, but still have more 1's than any other rating.

New Personal Best

First off, I'd like to thank Blogger for crashing when I hit the "save" button and losing this entire post. Now I get to re-write the whole thing!



Today started like every Saturday- with a pain inducing long training run. Today's 20 miles is the longest in the training program shy of the entire marathon, and it takes 2 full laps on the base's long loop. Now, I don't know if you've been watching the weather for the mid-atlantic region, but it is crappy here. It poured all yesterday and today is cold with a constant drizzle (forcing me to break out the tights for the first time this season). The main problem was the gale force winds- it was directly against me the entire close side of the loop. And it never let up! It was like running in a wind tunnel. On the next side my sweat was dripping off at a 90 degree angle. I took a little comfort in thinking that the wind would help me out on the far side, but no. By the time I was on my way back it was virtually still. So for lap two I had a couple options: Assume the wind is gone for good and keep running counter-clockwise, or switch directions in case the wind comes back on the near side. Well, I chose inaction and kept going. Of course, the wind in my face was just as strong for lap two, illustrating how sometimes I just don't learn (also evidenced by the way I keep going to Wal-mart on Saturday, even though every time I swear I'm switching to Target). When all was said and done, I averaged 8:38 minutes per mile. No matter how far I run, how many bathroom or drink breaks, it's almost always 8:38. Freaky.

There was almost no one else out because the weather scared off the less dedicated/smarter joggers, but I did run into a few women. They asked how far I was going, and I told them 20. They said "Oh, is this your second lap?" I said "No, first. I slept in." What I should've said was "No, I just always look like hell." They were on their second lap, so I asked in they were training for the Marine Corps Marathon as well. One said "No, but I am working the Tylenol tent for it." So I replied "In that case, I'll see you there."

I always weigh myself when I get back from a long run, just so I can get a good feel for dehydration. On a normal day, I weigh about 165. Today? 154. Mind you, I'm not trying to lose weight- if anything I eat way more than I used to. For lunch I had two double decker tacos and a burrito and didn't even feel bad about it.

I got home in time to listen to Iowa destroy Purdue on XM. On the plus side, they beat us much more soundly that Notre Dame did, so maybe that'll hurt the Irish in the rankings.

FYI: The Blogger spell-check doesn't know "burrito." Burrito! I'm not sure what's wierder- that it doesn't know that word, or that it took me this many posts to find out.

Embed YouTube in Blogger

When I wrote the Bananas Explained post I tried my darndest to get the YouTube video to play directly in the page, instead of having to click a link. This is probably the world's easiest task for someone who knows HTML, but I was stumped. YouTube says "just paste this!" but that doesn't work. Several web pages describe how, and none of their methods worked either. So, when I figured it out, I decided to post it so anyone who goes googeling for this problem can find it.

Here's my Blogger public service announcement:
How to insert / embed a YouTube Video into a Blogger / Blogspot blog post:


First, find your video on YouTube. Select the text in the box labeled "Embed" and copy it (either press ctrl+c or select "copy" under the "edit" menu). Back in Blogger, open the "Edit Html" window, and paste the code in. This will not work if you paste it in the "Compose" window! Then, delete the object tags at the beginning and the end. If I type anything resembling the object tags blogger freaks out, so I'll just say they're within these things: <> and contain the word "object."
Once you do that, you can click "Preview" and the video should show up in your post. When you go back to "Edit Html" the code for the video will look totally different, but will still work. This is when you can change the size of the video by changing the numbers after width and height.

See? Nothing to it. I'm sure there are other ways that work, but I don't know them. Maybe someday I'll figure out Google videos!

As for this video, I don't even consider it funny. It just makes me want to stand up and cheer.

Octoberfirst

Now it's October, which means one thing to me: there's less than a month until the Marine Corps Marathon. This weekend is my longest run yet at 20 miles (topping my previous long of 18), and then I start the taper. I think the part that's the hardest for me is going to be not running as far as I want to, and actually taking the time to rest. It's about time though- running made the switch from hobby to chore about a month ago.

This weekend was 1 for 3 in the football universe. Apparently the Colts had a great comeback finish against the Jets, but I wouldn't know because it wasn't on TV here. What was on (and in glorious HD) was the annual Purdue/Notre Dame grudgematch. Of course, Notre Dame beating Purdue is bad for several reasons.
Even though we lost, I must say I feel better about the team than I did after our victories over crappy opponents. First of all, the Domers are pretty good this year. Not as good as the media would have you believe of course, but we finally had a good test. And you know what? We moved the ball pretty well, even if our defense was little porous. Even though we lost by 14, that's still only two scores- it was never a run-away victory. I think a lot of our woes are due to a highly inexperienced secondary- we're starting several freshman due to injury, and they seemed pretty confused at times. A lot of long completions came against blown coverages, and though that's frustrating, it can be fixed. Offensively, we left a lot of points on the field with dropped passes, a fumble, and a missed field goal (here's a good recap). I'm highly impressed with QB Curtis Painter, and WR Selwyn Lymon. I especially liked the completion Painter threw while being tackled from behind- he showed great poise. In any case, next Purdue heads to Iowa for another tough road game, then to Northwestern where we hope to take one more step toward bowl-eligibility.

In a related note, I was very pleased to see the return of black pants for the football team. For the duration of my time at Purdue, the team was black on gold at home, white on black on the road. This gives fun alternate options, like black on black (which they never do in real life, but I do on Nintendo). Then came the gold uniform disaster. Then it was gold on white (which sucked) at home and white on gold for the road. This gave a few alternates of white on white (which is classic, but makes the helmet look weird) and an abysmal gold on gold. Even though harmony was partially restored when black home jerseys came back in 2004, they still only had the gold pants for the road. With the addition of black pants, and the fine tuning done to the jersey (no more out of place sleeve logos) Purdue has the first football uniforms I've liked since my senior year. And that's what counts, right?

In addition to waxing philosophical about football uniforms, this weekend was the Woodbury's deckwarming party, in which we all got to reap the fruits of like 6 of my (and Dave's) weekends this summer. It was an all-around good time, but my favorite part was the triumphant return of catch phrase, which may be the best party game ever. The men actually won the first few games, but the women roared back with a vengeance during the second round. Also, we played a few rounds of Scene It. After a brief scare during the first game (and utter domination in the second), I am happy to announce that my Scene It record still remains perfect. We were playing in teams, and at one point it was suggested that we just play everyone versus me, and I have to say, I was pretty confident. One of my friends shot down the idea on the basis of not wanting to hear me gloat. I wasn't aware that I was a gloater- maybe it would be unavoidable after such a display of movie trivia mastery.

One final note about the PU/ND game. Notre Dame scored a touchdown on a fake field goal when they were already up by two touchdowns. So, although we all like to think that anyone connected with the Patriots is a great guy, I have a sneaking suspiscion that Charlie Weis is kind of a jerk.