And to Think That I Saw It on My Long Run

When I leave for my long run my wife always tells me,
“Honey, keep your eyelids up and see what you can see.”
But when I return all agog, with a great post for my blog,
She sternly tells me, “Your eyesight’s too keen, like a wary guard dog.”
“Stop telling such outlandish tales. Stop turning minnows into whales.”

Now what can I blog about when I get home today?
All the way to the lake and all the way back,
I’ve looked and I’ve looked and I’ve kept careful track.
But all that I’ve noticed, while running ahead,
Was a woman with a bottle balanced high on her head.

That’s nothing to tell of, that’s far too dull,
Just a woman with a water bottle perched on her skull.

That can’t be my blog post, that’ll never do,
Instead of just one bottle, I’ll say it was two!
And that is a blog post that can’t be outdone,
When I say that it happened on my long, slow run.

Yes two bottles is fine, but it’s still kinda’ mellow,
She’ll be joggling instead, with seven balls that are yellow.
And the story would really be easier to embrace,
If we were joggling together at a blistering pace.
Yes, two speedy jogglers is nothing to shun,
When I say that it happened on my long, slow run.

But a spectacle like this deserves a large crowd,
I’ll add some more runners and fans that are loud,
A cyclist to salute us as he passes us by,
But not any old cyclist, it’s that Lance Armstrong guy,
And who is that swimming out in the lake?
It’s Mike Phelps himself, creating a wake.

The crowds push and they elbow to see all the drama,
VIPs have shown up, including McCain and Obama!
“You should be President,” they cheered from the side,
And that thought alone made me want to go hide.

Now that is a story that’s second to none,
When I say that I saw it on my long, slow run.

But now I don’t know, it doesn’t seem right,
We’d pass the crowd in a blur and be fast out of sight.
They’ll need a jumbotron screen with ultra slow-mo,
That stands 4 stories high and gives a good show.
Watch nationwide coverage on NBC,
But not until primetime so more people can see.

Yes, that makes a story that’s really not bad!

But it still could be better.

Suppose that I add...

... the Goodyear blimp circling the skies,
A bicycle chase team with plenty of supplies,
A police escort in front to make the path clear,
A truck with our times displayed on the rear,
A pace team to guide us around every bend...
No time for more, we’re close to the end.

I swung ‘round the corner and dashed through the gate,
I ran up the steps and I felt simply GREAT!

FOR I HAD A BLOG POST THAT COULDN’T BE OUTDONE!

AND TO THINK THAT I SAW IT ON MY LONG, SLOW RUN!

But my wife said quite calmly, when I returned from my jogging,

“Now what did you see? Was there anything worth blogging?”

Oh, where to begin? I HAD SO MUCH TO SHARE!

But my wife looked at me sharply with a skeptical glare.

She raised up an eyebrow and quietly said,
“Was there nothing to look at... no tales you can spread?
Is there no story to be woven, not even a thread?”

“Nothing,” I said, my face turning beet red,
“But a woman with a bottle perched high on her head.”


With apologies to Dr. Seuss.

Hydration Made Easy

I’ve finally solved the age old problem of how to hydrate on a run without having to wear a fuel belt (which just looks awkward), or carry a water bottle (which just freezes your hand and tilts your kilter). This past week Candis and I found ourselves without our children on several occasions thanks to their grandparents, who unimaginably seem to enjoy spending time with the dirt-covered, balls of energy that we’ve produced. It was on one such peaceful afternoon that I decided to head out for a run, and since we are one of those annoyingly cute couples that still enjoy each other’s company, Candis decided to tag along on her bike.

I took full advantage of this situation and loaded Candis up with water bottles, Clif SHOT Gels, and anything else that I thought I might need on my run. It was fantastic. Whenever I needed a drink I just snapped my fingers and barked “Water!” I’d douse myself with cool water like an Olympic marathoner and then toss the bottle to the side of the road, because if the Olympic marathoners can do it, then I can too. Of course since we had a limited supply, Candis would jump down from her bike, scurry off to the side of the road to pick up the water bottle and then catch back up with me. Being the loving husband that I am I never once complained about how long it took her to do this.

After a couple of miles I was really getting the hang of running with a cyclist and I was demanding assistance like an entitled actor with an oversized ego. “Hold my sunglasses,” “give me a SHOT Gel,” “take my hat,” “give me back my sunglasses and hat,” “no, no, no, hand me the hat first and then the sunglasses, are you trying to make me slower?” “Go on ahead and push the button for the crosswalk and make sure you time it so that I don’t have to slow down.” I even considered asking her to wipe the sweat from my brow, but she looked so wobbly with all those things in her hands that I was worried she’d accidentally hit me with the handlebars. Perhaps once she gets a little better at this we’ll give that one a shot.

It was a good run, and I think that we both enjoyed my company. It’s really nice to have water available without having to figure out how to carry it, and I plan on doing many more runs with my wife at my side. I highly recommend this method of carrying water on runs for those of you with spouses or children who can ride bikes. It’s time to put your family to work for your benefit, you won’t be disappointed.

Weekend Splits

Weekend Splits is my recap of things that I found interesting or humorous over the past week. If you have a submission for the weekend splits e-mail me.

I’m going to keep this short like my runs (lately) and your attention spans. It occurred to me recently that I rarely feature any of the blogs that I have listed over there --> in the Half-Fast Recommends section in my Weekend Splits post. I guess that’s because I assume that you all read those blogs anyway, which probably isn’t the case given your short attention spans. Anyway, if I included every good post from each of those blogs, the Weekend Splits would just be overrun by links to Amy Lawson, Viper, Nitmos, J-Money, and the rest of them. Be sure to check them all out regularly, in the meantime check out the links below.

• Reid is hosting a 1 Mile Virtual Race on September 6th. I have another race that day, but I may try and do it anyway. 1 mile couldn’t hurt, right?
  
• Jamoosh gives us his Olympic wrap-up including which sports need to quit the Olympics. Try and guess if the trampoline is one of them.
  
• If you’re missing the Olympics, Steve has some ideas to help you get over them, but you’re going to need a feral cat.
  
• Jeanne writes a letter to running. It sums up how I’ve felt about my runs this past week very nicely.

Comments of the Week

Adam on the Half-Fast Sighting post: I understand if you’re chased by a NASCAR fan you can make a successful escape simply by turning right. It confounds them every time.
RazZDoodle, in reference to the bird porn people: Donald Duck Does Dallas!
Xenia: And the bird porn lady... I think she should be more concerned with squirrel porn. Have you seen the size of their nuts?
Nitmos, in reference to Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney’s duet: I think you have it wrong. I believe MJ said: “McCauley, I think I told you, I’m a lover not a fighter.”

Excellent work all around. You guys crack me up!

Random Non-Running Related Video of the Week
Whenever I don’t know what to post for a video in the Weekend Splits I go rummage through the recent posts over at With Leather. Those guys are always good for a skateboarder doing something stupid that we can all laugh at. This one’s a little different though because the stupidity starts before the guy even gets on his skateboard and ends up preventing him from doing his trick. It’s a shame, because I would have loved to see a skateboarder with his pants on fire skateboarding down a rock of fire... uh-oh. I hope I didn’t just give away what’s going to happen. (Video Contains Strong Language)


Have a great weekend everyone. It’s Labor Day here in the US on Monday so you’ll have to live without my wit and wisdom until Tuesday. It will be tough, but I’m confident most of you will pull through.

Evening Running Again

I slept in again this morning instead of running, which means that I’ll be running when I get home from work this evening, or maybe this afternoon because really, who wants to work a full 6 hour day anyway? Not me, that’s who. You might be thinking that I should have learned my lesson in yesterday’s post, but if you’re thinking that then it’s like you don’t even know me at all! Learning from your mistakes is for history teachers and people who are too weak to make the same mistakes twice. Me? I like to make the same mistake several times before I learn from it, that way it really sticks, kinda’ like taking the same class several times because you flunked it the first 3 times. Who do you think knows more about economics, me or the guy that only took it once?

I guess I’m kind of in a running funk right now and not the good kind of funk. If anyone has any ideas that might motivate me then be sure to send them my way, and send them repeatedly since I probably won’t catch on the first few times.

Daily DNC Report
The number of cops here in Denver has increased significantly, or maybe they’ve just been more visible in the past couple of days. They’ve been pretty congenial, even posing for pictures with kids and tourists on several occasions. You literally can’t walk 20 yards without passing a group of SWAT cops decked out in riot gear. It’s been difficult to maintain my regular practice of mouthing something like “you filthy pig” from under my disdainful glare to each and every one of them, but I’ve struggled through. What else am I going to do with all the righteous indignation that has welled up inside me based partially on my own experience but mostly on movies depicting cops as bad apples who enjoy abusing their power, and flexing their authority to compensate for their teeny, tiny... intellects. What? You thought I was going to say something else there? Also, when did The Rock become a SWAT cop?

Can you smell what the SWAT is cooking?
There are so many groups out there trying to get their message out that you really need to turn on your BS filter before heading out the door. Or if your BS filter is not very good (i.e. you’re gullible or a moron) then you can always get some glasses like these that will filter it out for you.

It’s kind of hard to see, but the girl with the BS glasses is also wearing a neon pink sticker at the bottom of her shirt, right next to where I annoyingly branded the picture. It says “Make Out, Not War.” Michael Phelps (far left, red shirt) is not impressed. I always thought it was “make love, not war” and frankly that’s much more poetic and makes me think of Michael Jackson’s duet with Paul McCartney where he tells him “Paul, I think I told you, I’m a lover not a fighter.”

When I first saw this ostrich (see below), I thought we were going to get a demonstration from the bird porn people, maybe something like this, but I guess not. Boy, I hope that link doesn’t get me into hot water with the bird porn people. If it matters I didn’t get aroused at all watching that video.

Running is a Harsh Mistress

Last night’s run sucked, it was a VW Jetta run for sure. I skipped my long run this past weekend (meaning I didn’t do it, not that I was skipping for 12 miles) and then I sacrificed yesterday's morning run on the alter of the sleep gods. Sleeping in felt good, but I’m pretty sure the running gods punished my indiscretions with a crappy run last night.

I set up my Garmin for some 3 x 1600 intervals and headed out down my usual running trail. The warm up and initial interval went pretty well, but then it headed down the crapper faster than a supermodel’s purged lunch. My legs felt like lead weights, my breathing was off, I was extremely hot, and my ears were ringing, which has never happened before but can’t be good. I’ve tried to come up with every possible excuse reason for my horrendous performance and can’t think of any. I guess that there are just some days when you are going to have a bad run and on days like yesterday, even wearing your lucky rocketship underpants won’t help.

Daily DNC Report
Hey, if I have to put up with all the disruptions it brings, you have to hear me whine about it. Hopefully, I’ll be able to bring you all a little flavor of the DNC at the end of some of my posts this week.

I know I said yesterday that I would not be revealing my political affiliation or candidate of choice but I’m going to break my silence today and throw the full weight of Half-Fast behind one candidate who I saw campaigning yesterday on the mall. I am officially endorsing Captain Morgan.

A platform of booze and wenches is one that I can definitely get behind. Incidentally, this reminds me of a joke. A pirate walks into a bar with a ship’s helm protruding from his pants, the bartender looks at him and says “Hey, you’ve got a ship’s helm sticking out of your fly!” The pirate snarls at him and responds “Ayy matey, ‘tis drivin’ me nuts.” Completely unrelated, but a funny joke, no?

I also took a flyer from a woman with a sign that said “Stop Bird Porn,” because I think that bird porn is going to be one of the topics that decides the outcome of this election. Here is an excerpt from the flyer: “The elderly find that Bird Watching is not strenuous. And this erotic experience can be enjoyed privately through binoculars. Most disturbing are groups of Bird Watchers seeking vicarious sexual gratification in the woods. Shamelessly, they blatantly observe God’s defenseless creatures mating. LEAVE THE BIRDS ALONE!”

As you can see, crazy has busted onto the scene here in Denver in Kramer-esque fashion, (unfortunately in some cases, complete with racist overtones). The bird porn lady is just one example of crazy and she’s got it all wrong. I mean, I agree that these dastardly peeping toms are the pondscum of society, but if birds didn’t want to be seen mating then they wouldn’t do it in my front yard for all the world to see. Stupid, exhibitionist birds! She says stop the voyeurs, I say stop the exhibitionists!

Interestingly, the flyer was translated into Russian on the back which leads me to think that maybe our Russian immigrant friends are the ones who need to hear her message.

Off Track: DNC is in Town

The Democratic National Convention is in Denver this week and I work somewhat close to all the action. I took a trip down the 16th street walking mall at lunch time yesterday and thought I’d compile a few stats for all of you.

Number of people I judged to be ‘obviously a Democrat’ or ‘obviously a Republican’ based solely on outward mannerisms: 13
Number of times I felt guilty for judging a book by its cover: 0

Number of people walking the 16th street mall with signs displaying political messages: 31
Number of people that will see those signs: 89,024 (estimation)
Number of people whose minds will be swayed by a sign or poster board: 1
Number of people yelling at people with signs: 5

Number of helicopters seen overhead: 9
Number of police and security officers seen: 1,057
Number that looked bored: 1,053
Number that I could most certainly outrun: 1,035

Number of opportunities to buy overpriced DNC memorabilia: 14
Number of times survey-takers asked if I was registered to vote in Colorado: 7
Number of times I lied and said no: 7

Number of times I was asked for directions: 3
Number of times correct directions were given: 2

Number of people wearing Obama pins, shirts, bags etc. 2,695 (estimation)
Number of people wearing Hillary Clinton pins, shirts, bags etc. 3
Number of people wearing McCain pins, shirts, bags etc. 0

Number of dollars that the parking lot next to my office increased its daily rate: 31
Number of empty parking spots in that lot yesterday when I arrived: 0
Number of times I have since wished I owned a parking lot downtown: 16

Number of clients who trekked into the downtown area to pay us a visit yesterday: 0
Number of clients expected over the next 4 days: 0
Number of reasons for me to work in the office instead of at home: 0
Number of days I have been given permission to work from home: 0

Number of times I will reveal my political affiliation or candidate of choice on this blog: 0

Half-Fast Sighting

Huge thanks to the award-winning Sarah who sent me the picture below. (Seriously, she just won an award, first overall female or something.) I’ll let Sarah introduce the picture:

Last Sunday I attended-- no, made the pilgrimage to-- the NASCAR race at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan, which is about 20 miles away from my home. While at the race, on the infield (our customary spot), my husband and I spent some time walking around. I took a lot of pictures as I am eternally fascinated by the species Homo sapiens redneckius. The MIS infield provides ample viewing opportunity of these specimens. I spotted this example of a "NASCAR bus" and immediately knew I had, absolutely had to take pictures of it. Enjoy!

Thanks Sarah! I guess my secret is out now. It’s true, I sponsor an infield NASCAR bus and allow only the fastest runners to sit atop of it and watch the race. All of the people you see up there run sub 2 ½ hour marathons without breaking a sweat. Of course when I say ‘run’ I actually mean ‘watch’ and when I say ‘sub 2 ½ hour marathons’ I actually mean ‘Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.’ I bet I can beat 95% of any NASCAR infield in a footrace. I would have said 100% but it turns out that Sarah would probably own me. Perhaps I’ve found my new running goal; to be faster than everyone who regularly attends NASCAR events.

Finally, there are still 3 open spots in the Half-Fast Fantasy Football league. Sign up before Thursday if you want in, if you have any problems logging in, shoot me an e-mail and I’ll send you an invite.

Delicious Sesame Chicken to Blame for Dropped Batons

Drop it like it’s hot.
As you have probably heard by now both the men’s and women’s US 4x100m relay teams dropped the batons in the semi-finals at the Olympics. Many of the pundits have looked at the tapes and tried to figure out where the mistakes were made and what was to blame for the Americans raging case of the dropsies. What has gone unreported until now is the underhanded tactics that were employed by the seedy underbelly of the Chinese Olympic committee.

The shocking truth that I am about to expose was relayed to me by confidential sources (like a friend of a friend and anonymous e-mailers so you know it’s totally true), and could cost me life imprisonment or even death should I ever go to China.

As the US men’s relay team tried to focus on their upcoming semi-final in a locker room under the Bird’s Nest stadium, they were startled by a knock on the door. A young Chinese girl, no more than 13 years of age entered with a special delivery, a large bowl of sesame chicken and 4 pairs of chopsticks. The athletes, suspicious at first decided to leave it alone, but the smell was too tempting. Unable to operate the chopsticks provided, the men dug in with their fingers unsuspecting that the cunning and Machiavellian Chinese Olympic committee had turned off the water in the US locker room, leaving them unable to wash their hands.

The rest, as they say, is history. It’s hard enough to pass a baton with clean hands. When your hands are slick with sesame chicken residue it’s all but impossible. The devious scheming didn’t stop with the men’s relay team either, as the slippery, sesame chicken baton was then given to the US women to use in their heat too. Two birds taken out with one stone, actually three birds if you count the chicken, or believe that it was really chicken.

When reached for comment Tyson Gay was upbeat. “The joke’s on them,” Gay said, “because that was the best sesame chicken that I’ve ever had. You get to compete for Olympic medals every 4 years. You only get sesame chicken like that once in a lifetime. It was that good.” Gay went on to add that it didn't really matter because he “didn’t think we were going to beat Usain Bolt and the Jamaican team in the finals.” When asked whether he was worried about a similar situation cropping up in London 2012 Gay told reporters that he didn’t see it as a problem because “British cuisine sucks.”

Another Request for Garmin

The fine folks at Garmin have completely ignored my previous request for sunglasses with a Heads-Up-Display (HUD). Why is it that I can get some random guy to offer to make me a frilly skirt, but I can’t get anyone at Garmin to offer to make me those sunglasses I suggested? Perhaps I overshot current technology with the sunglasses request but I have another suggestion for Garmin today that should be fairly easy to accommodate. Being the easily accommodatable guy that I am, I’m willing to forget all about them stonewalling me on the HUD Sunglasses thing if they’re willing to send me a new Forerunner 405 with the following new feature that I am suggesting today:

Predicted Finish Time. I call it PFT for short, which is pronounced kind of like a quick, quiet fart (pffftt). I think that makes it an onomatopoeia. You would primarily use the PFT feature for races. You would need to input your race distance prior to beginning your workout or race. The Garmin would take the distance you have remaining and multiply it by your current pace, then it would add this to the time that you’ve already been running. The Garmin would essentially tell you what your finish time is going to be based on you maintaining your current pace. Now that’s useful information! Much more useful than some of the existing features that my Garmin has, I mean, have any of you ever used the Sunrise or Sunset feature? How about the distance feature? Totally pointless, am I right?

As always, if anyone at Garmin sees my PFT idea and implements it, or even if they implement PFT without seeing this, they are welcome to pay me royalties for my geniusness. While we’re on the subject of great ideas, I just thought of another one that should be standard on every Garmin, a thermostat. No, I don’t mean a thermometer. I don’t want it to tell me how hot it is, I want to be able to turn the temperature down. Now admittedly I’m not sure how the technology behind a thermostat works, but people have had them in their homes for like, the last 2,000 years or something, so it’s about time we figured out how to make them fit into watches (and sunglasses). Also, how about an incline/decline button like my treadmill has? You want to do hill sprints but don’t have a hill? Just use the Garmin incline button. Tired of running uphill? Use the decline button and you’ll be running an easy 0% grade in no time. There are tons of great things that Garmin could put on their Forerunner series watches, yours in the comments.

The Skirt Chaser 5K

As you no doubt remember from my last race report miles 11, 12 and 13 were unending in their torment of my psyche and my quads. I am bound and determined to make sure that doesn’t happen in my next race, which is why I have picked a race that doesn’t have a mile 11,12, or 13. In fact, it doesn’t even have a mile 4 because it’s a 5K, hopefully the title of this post didn’t give that away too early.

On September 6th Candis and I will be running in the Denver Skirt Chaser 5K. The women start off in the first wave with a 3 minute head start, and the men start in the second wave, also called the skirt chaser wave. A 3 minute head start is a sufficient amount of time for me to boil an egg and then chase down Candis somewhere before the 2 mile mark. Once I catch her I’ll give her a taunting loving pat on the butt and then speed off to finish the race as far ahead of her as possible, reminding her that I am superior and belong on a pedestal. Do not bother to respond in the comments about how Candis is going to ‘totally kick my butt’ because it is a virtual certainty that she will be ‘husbanded’ before the race is said and done. (‘Husbanded,’ another one for the list Nitmos? Or maybe Vanilla’d?)

It’s been a while since I’ve run a 5K so this will be a good judge of progress as to how well I’m Shaving My 5K. The skirt chaser race series is supposed to have one of the best post race block parties with beer and music aplenty so I’m looking forward to the event. Additionally, there are going to be at least two other bloggers that I know of who are heading out to Denver to participate in this event so perhaps I’ll get to meet them too.

For those of you who are wondering, Candis will be running in a skirt, I will not, despite this generous offer that I received shortly after my Men’s Running Skirt post:

Just a line to let you know that if you want a running skirt for free it would be my honor to make one for you. Send me your measurements and color and type you desire. - Davian Steffen, SkortMan.

At first I thought that it would be kind of funny to go ahead and get a skirt to run in, so I clicked on the link to his site, SkortMan and then I took a long hot shower in the fetal position because it was quite a bit different from what I was expecting. Go ahead, click the link.

So on the off chance that Davian Steffen is reading this, thanks for your generous offer but I’m going to have to pass.