5 mins type up, turned into 90 mintues.

A friend said it best: “I've been meaning to blog, but can't find the time to focus on writing.”
I feel exactly the same way about it. Lately, as much as I want to write about stuff, and I’ve had the time to do it, I just haven’t felt up for sitting down and typing away at these black plastic letters. (My friend Mike called them that the other day, and eluded to how our lives are wasted sitting inside pecking at black plastic letters while beautiful days go on outside. )
And I peck all day at work, if I’m not on the phone, I’m pecking, so when I get home it gets hard to motivate myself to either make a phone call that is way overdue, or peck away.

This week I’ve run more than usual. I was running this morning with Jo Dee and Kerry and Karma on the greenbelt. It was quite the quiet run, instead of our normal banter filled outings. So I thought about many things… one of which was,”hmmm… I don’t feel like I’ve run much lately”, but then, I counted out what I’ve done of late, and I’ve been actually running more than usual. However, I have this weird feeling that I haven’t run much at all. Last Saturday I ran 14 on the road at a crazy fast pace, Sunday I ran 4 on the greenbelt with my favorite 4-legger. Monday I ran 9 or 10 with Nedra before work, Tuesday, I ran with performance project: 20 min easy, 20 min hard, 20 min easy… came out to about 7.5 miles. Wednesday I ran 4 with Kerry and Karma on the greenbelt with a headlamp. Thursday I took a rest day. Friday I ran 4 with Kerry and Karma at a fast pace on the greenbelt with the headlamp. Saturday I ran 7 miles extremely hung over with the Marathon group. Sunday (today), I ran 9 on the greenbelt. (Karma did much better than expected!) add that up… 59 miles in 8 days with only one rest day. Yikes. But it doesn’t even feel like I did that much. Probably because I didn’t click a single button on my watch all week. I just looked at the approximate start time, and when I finished.

I have some pains:
- My left leg’s IT Band has really been flaring up on some of my runs. The pains come in waves, such as today, it was almost unbearable. But yesterday’s 7 miler, I had no issues, nor did I on Friday, but Wednesday was bad, and so was Tuesday, but not on Monday.
- The bottom of my right leg (lower shin) started to rally hurt today as well. And it’s been hurting all day. Either this is a phantom pain, a pain that is due to the overcompensation I did due to Pain #1, or Shin Splints, or a Stress Fracture. I’m running 10 tomorrow morning, so hopefully it’s not a stress fracture or shin splints! Ha!
- One of my lower right back muscles is in pain. This morning Karma was in the back of the car, and I was digging out something from the hidden compartment of the trunk. (I can lift the rear floorboard, and there’s room under there to store stuff), anyway, so I’m holding up the floorboard and karma decided to walk on it, so all of a sudden the thing went from weighing 3 pounds to 50 pounds, and I wasn’t looking. Anyway, I strained a back muscle, and that is still pretty crappy today.

I’ve got some rather long runs planned in the coming weeks, so it’ll be fun to run through all those!

I’m also a little disappointed with myself over this weekend. I drank 1 too many beers on Friday night, so Saturday after the run was spent sleeping until I went to a marathon speech by my running coach for all the people that are running the Austin marathon next week. Even if I’m not in race training mode, it’s always rewarding to hear good speeches. He’s a fantastic and inspirational talker, and he didn’t disappoint. After he was done at 8i’sh, I stuck around with some friends as we talked about their upcoming marathon, and then ended up sitting around with my current 2 coaches and my prior coach as the last 4. Ruthie went home, and then there were three of us. I was there till almost 11. So today’s Sunday run was fun, but it was a rough wakeup, I felt weak in the run, and even had to pull into the woods for a nature break. My stomach’s pretty upset with me. (Note to self: Do not drink beers, margaritas and more beers two nights in a row if you’re running both days as well. Not good).
So all that to finally get to why I’m disappointed in myself: I meant to call a few people, I meant to hang out with a few people, and I meant to go to some store to get some errands done, but instead, I just hung out in my little cave, sleeping the days away in bed, or on my couch,
I shouldn’t feel too bad though… I did stay out till well past my bed time two nights, and ran 16 miles over two days. I just didn’t do what I should have done, and I feel bad. So if you are reading this and feel like I let you down, I’m sorry.

My fridge died on Tuesday. I didn’t get a new fridge till Thursday. In between, I quickly reacted and loaded up as much as I could into a cooler with ice. The ice was still hard and fresh looking when I opened the cooler 48 hours later, so I decided everything had survived. However, all frozen foods were thawed out, so I threw the few packs of chicken breasts away and then cooked up ALL other frozen foods on Thursday night. I then re-froze everything. You can’t re-freeze thawed out food, but you can freeze cooked food!
But I did have to throw out a ton of stuff that simply didn’t fit in the cooler. All dressings, and tons of condiments, pudding snacks, sour creams etc… so now, my fridge looks pathetic. It’s always been full of options, but now it’s dead. There’s about 4 things in it (not counting the door stuff).
I bet it’ll cost me a good $200 to get it back in shape. The apartment complex told me they’ll deduct one day of rent, but that’s around $30. I’m thinking of asking them for 100, so they pay for half my stuff. After all, I emailed them at 5:36am on Tuesday morning, and they could have easily had done something by noon that day to save my food. We’ll see how that goes.

On the TV front…
As you may or may not know, I’m a TV heavyweight title contender. I love watching TV.
Is there a better show on tv than Entourage? I don’t have HBO, but I rent the videos of their episodes. I just watched 3 more today, but alas, there are no more until they release more sometime in the future. I am craving some more Entourage.
I also finally started watching all the recorded episodes of terminator: sarah connor chronicles. It’s surprisingly better than I expected it to be, except the friendly chick cyborg isn’t the best actor. But I’ll keep watching.
Friday Night Lights continues to satisfy. That show is the best DVR’d show period. Enough said.
Need to catch up on recordings of LOST, and Moonlight (kind cheesy, but it works), and oh yeah, I still have the last 4 episodes of last season’s Heroes to get through.
It’s hard to get caught up with all the other good stuff going on. I know you’re wondering: what other good stuff. Well, if you have High Def, then you understand, if you don’t, then well, you simply don’t/won’t understand… You just get sucked in to watching so much Discovery Channel HD, National Geographic HD, Food Network HD, history Channel HD, and others… The shows doesn’t have to be the best in the world, but on the TV I have, it’s hard not to watch those things.
I love my Pioneer Plasma. Love. It.

Shit… I really wanted to watch 60 minutes tonight, but just saw that it’s 6:53. Dammit.

Last thought: I’m absolutely fascinated and addicted to the election coverage. If I’m not watching it on TV, I’m reading it on my computer, or looking at headlines on my phone. Can’t wait to vote on March 4.

Another day, another month, another year in the books.

I wasn’t planning on writing and end of year post, as during the “planning the post in my head” I couldn’t figure out a format with which I’d be happy. But, then I read one from a fellow blogger, and decided to just write and not worry about a nicely architected end of year post. After all, why does an end of year any more important than any other one?

So this last year a few things stand out. I changed jobs late last year, so this was my first full year. I work sales, and will end the year as the #1 sales rep. I’m pretty happy with my results, learned a ton throughout the process, and look forward to attacking some new challenges in the new year.

Running wise, I got faster. Much faster. I ran 2 full marathons! (and a half one!), but couldn’t quite reach the goal I set out for this year. I was really close on one, and learned that at the end of a marathon, if you feel like crap, go ahead and visit the medical tent. There’s no shame in it, and you paid your $100 to run the stupid thing, so it’s your right to use all facilities! I also learned that weather can really affect your performance. Too hot, and you just melt, and too cold, and your legs possibly get too frozen if you haven’t run in those conditions for the last 8 months. (maybe) I also learned that I’m a mortal, and not Steve Prefontaine. I really really REALLY wanted to qualify for the mother of all marathons, but in the process I learned 1 major thing: You must respect the distance. Regardless how well trained you are, how many long runs you’ve run like a champ, and how ready you feel, the marathon distance must be respected. Not only physically, but most of all mentally.
I learned it the hard way. Simply put, if you’re mentally not there, you may as well pack it in, OR, pull back on your time plans. I know that now... I promise you that.
Oh yeah, and I also learned that running is fun not only on the roads or trails, but also outside of running. Running brings a lot more to life than just miles on your shoes, and I couldn't be more thankful that I got pushed into it. Thanks!

In life, I made two big decisions at the start. Well, actually three. The first was not to make resolutions, but instead, make decisions to change aspects of how I approach life. I know, you’ll say, “That’s what a resolution is”, but to me, they’re different. The other two changes I decided to make I’m really happy with.
-I decided I would do things I want to do, and be honest about my thoughts. Simply put, I decided I wasn’t going to be guilted into doing something I didn’t want to, or go along with the masses just because “everyone else is going”. I can’t be happier with the outcome. Sure, some people have found my honesty a little out of the ordinary, but telling people I simply didn’t want to go when I didn’t want to go, has been very healthy.
-The other one was to commit to what I committed to. It kind of goes a little hand in hand with the other one, but it’s essentially to stick to day to day plans. Sure, big plans, long term plans can change over time, but the little things… the plan to take Karma to the greenbelt, the plan to meet a friend for lunch, the plan to go to dinner with someone… all the little plans that get jeopardized when something more exciting pops up. I call it “better dealing” something or someone for someone or something else. I think I did a really good job of not better dealing anyone.

What else? I’ve covered the bill paying thing, the running thing and got some personal things covered, so that’s about it. Oh yeah, almost forgot. I also got even healthier in my eating and exponentially increased the number of meals I eat at home. The results were not only feeling better physically, but my savings account is also healthier. That means that there may be enough money for a down payment on a place I can call my own in the horizon. However, this “horizon” is somewhere 6 – 36 months away! We’ll see.

So what’s in store for ’08?
Oh, I don’t know. I haven't even fully decided on what I’m doing tonight to celebrate the end of 2007!

Is it Saturday afternoon yet?

Saturday I got up at 4am, took Karma out, finished packing the car with tailgating stuff, ate, then drove over to the 18 mile run I had at 6am At 8:45 I drove back home, jumped in the shower grabbed last few things from the fridge and headed over to Trey and Nedra’s Karma stayed there, so he could enjoy the nice afternoon in their backyard We drove down and tailgated and drank beers and ate chili for a few hours before the game Stood in the sun and was loud for 4 hours After picking Karma back up, finally got home at 8:30ish, and was asleep by 9pm Back up again at 5am for a quick shower as I had to be downtown by 6am to volunteer for the EAS 10 mile race this morning Stood out there directing runners either the 5K or 10 mile route, then cheered many friends in for 3 hours Then headed over to some post run hang out and chat session Got home at around 11am, ate a bunch of pasta, drank about a gallon of water and slept for 2 hours till 1:30, when it was time to un-groggify myself as at 3 I had to be at the Dog Park with Karma to meet up with Marla and many others We walked over to the north side of townlake by I-35 and released Eden’s ashes, then walked back to the dog parked where the doggies played I gave up at 4pm, as I felt like a zombie and just really needed some down time Drove by P-Terry’s loaded up with a burger, fries and a well deserved vanilla milkshake and came home Napped for about an hour after an early dinner, and just have sat around staring at the tv Now it’s almost 8pm, and I’m ready to go to sleep The weekend was rough Tomorrow, my day starts at 3:45 with a 14 mile run at 5am before work, then work, quick nap at lunch, followed by more work and then meeting some friends for a couple of drinks Then it’s back to bed, and up at 4:3o on Tuesday for a track workout, and then “assistant coaching” duties at 5:45pm (I’m not really an assistant coach, they just call me that) anyway… coming off a hard 18 miles, I jump into a 60 mile week that is capped off with a 24 miler on Saturday Is it Friday yet? I need a weekend to recover, and it’s barely Sunday night.