A New Blog

This is just a quick post to let everyone who’s still reading know that I’ve been invited to join a new parenting blog called Bottle Fed Parents. I’ll still be posting about running here on Half-Fast, in fact I’m currently working on a post about how horrible teenagers are which might seem like it would belong on a parenting blog but it’s not about my kids it’s about teenagers that I encountered while running so it’s running blog material.

I’ve also been roped in to a 5k by some coworkers so I’ll probably have an update about that sometime after the race is over. Office bragging rights are on the line.

That’s all for a later date though, the purpose of this post is to point you to Bottle Fed Parents where I’ll be joining Nitmos, Razz, and X-Country2 in cautionary tales of parenting.

In Training

Training for my November half marathon is going about as well as can be expected. I’m up to 10 miles now on my long runs now and I seem to be completing them a little faster than I had expected. The key here is to have really low expectations. Aim low and you’ll never be disappointed, that’s what I always say. There’s still 7 weeks to go which is plenty of time for me to build up my long run to 12 miles. I find that I race best at this distance if I can get in a few 12 mile training runs prior to the race. I smell a new PR in the works and you know what that means? It means at least one more post this year so that I can beat my chest and brag about being just a little bit more towards the front of the middle of the pack than I was before. (That sentence made sense in my head.) I’ve already had one new PR this year if I had 2 I’d be just about impossible to live with.

Since I’m not posting all that frequently here, I’ll leave you with a new running blog suggestion: Vomit Colored Shoes. He writes with the same sense of humor that I try for here and he pulls it off better than I do. No, no you’re right, nobody does it better than I do but he definitely does it more frequently. He’s still in that cute, post-every-day stage that new bloggers go through so head on over there and leave him some comments. It sounds like he’s a fairly new runner too so you should feel free to give him lots and lots of unsolicited advice, just be sure to mix in some really bad advice every once and a while to keep him on his toes.

Failing to Plan

I feel like I’ve been running long enough that I can go out and run several times a week without needing a specific training plan. In the past I’ve used any number of online training plans to lead me right up to my target race date and some of them have worked great and some of them have failed miserably. (It’s always the race plan that fails, never the runner). My point being that I don’t feel like I need some printout to tell me the type or distance of my run today. I can figure out on my own whether I should be doing intervals or a tempo run or cross training or how quickly I can increase my mileage etc.

I feel like I know myself well enough to determine the best training plan for my upcoming races. I feel like I know myself better than Hal Higdon or Yasso or any of these other running gods that put together training plans but I also feel like this is the kind of pride that goes before a fall so we shall see what becomes of me in November. All this to say that I’m winging it for my fall half marathon, it’s the Half-Fast way.

I’m Not Back
Viper asked on my last post if I was ‘back’ and then before I could respond (hint: I was never going to respond) Randy congratulated me on being ‘back.’ Let me just clarify that I’m not ‘back’ per se, I’m just enjoying writing again. I quit writing here because it became a chore. I felt that in order for this to be a successful blog I needed to post x number of times a week and that drained the joy from it like a freshly unclogged toilet. By saying that I’m not ‘back’ I can feel free to write when I want to and fill the blog up with crap at my leisure, always a more pleasurable activity.

Mmmmm Pancakes

As promised in my last post my training has started! Yes, I’ve been running a lot more lately but I’m not sure if I can actually count it as training because I haven’t been posting my runs on Facebook. Does it even count as running if you don’t tell Facebook about it? Right now I’m leaning towards the Heart Center of the Rockies Half Marathon in Loveland in early November. Pros: It’s only $50, cool heart shaped medal, free pancake breakfast, tech shirt included, it’s 11 weeks away, and FREE PANCAKE BREAKFAST! Nothing is more satisfying after a run than trying to consume all the calories that you just burned. Cons: apparently you have to run 13.1 miles or something.

Last night while I was out training for my pancake half marathon (my new preferred name for the event) a lot of geese were flying overhead. I couldn’t decide if I should look up at the geese so that when they pooped I’d see it coming and be able to dodge it, or if I should look down so as not to take a goose deuce to the face. I tried it both ways but none of them ever opened the bomb bay doors so maybe I’m over-thinking this. I’ll continue experimenting and keep you posted. I also had a close encounter with a coyote on my run but I was less concerned about that, especially when I saw the ACME brand rockets he was using. Meep, meep!

Training Starts Tomorrow...

... always tomorrow. As of late there’s been a severe lack of running going on around here. Between vacationing in St. Lucia, camping trips, entertaining guests from the UK, birthday parties, BBQs and a ton of other things it seems like I never have time to run. Of course it doesn’t help that when I have had time to run I’ve chosen to sit on the couch instead, I guess I can’t blame it all on scheduling problems.

Since brute force of will power seems to be failing me, I’ve decided that I need to sign up for a fall half marathon. Nothing motivates like that ‘oh crap I’m not ready for this’ feeling that you get from seeing a race looming on the calendar that you’ve already paid for. I actually wanted to run the Denver Rock ‘n’ Roll Half this year but it’s less than 6 weeks away and Oh crap, I’m not ready for that! It’s also $115 which lands somewhere between excessive and extortion, both topics that I know plenty about as a banker.

If you know of a good fall marathon (preferably late fall) then let me know in the comments because training starts tomorrow!

We Have a Winner!

First of all, a HUGE thank you to all of you who supported this cause whether it was with a comment or a donation. I really didn’t expect the response that I received and it was wonderful to see.

Without further ado let’s get on to announcing the winner. Congratulations to Road Warrior of Philly to LA on Foot fame. Here’s what you need to do to claim your prize:

Send an e-mail to me (halffastvanilla@gmail.com) with a shipping address. How easy is that?

For those of you wondering how the Relay went it was a huge success. Thanks to you, our family reached our fundraising goal and the total fundraising for the night was in excess of $90,000.
Suck it, cancer!

Tell Cancer to Shove it - Win Prizes!

Ok, not prizes but prize. A while back someone gave me the Sony MP3 player that you see pictured to the right to give away to a lucky reader. Since I’m a lazy pile I’ve been waiting for the opportune moment to give this away and now that I’ve already missed several opportune moments it’s time to step up to the plate.

So, if you leave a comment on this post in the next week (prior to Wed, August 8th) then you will be entered into the drawing. This means that your chances of winning are really, really good because let’s face it, you’re probably the only person still reading this blog! There have been no more than 10 comments on any of the posts I’ve written this year and half of those are probably just me trying to up my comment count.

If that’s not good enough for you and you want to further increase your chances of winning then there’s a way to do that too! Here’s how:

This Friday my family and I are participating in the Relay For Life Cancer Walk at a nearby high school with Candis’s aunt who is a cancer survivor. It’s something that we’ve done before because it has been close to both our families. Candis and I are fortunate to know quite a few cancer survivors but many, many more people don’t have survivor stories and that is something that we’d all like to see change. So, if you DONATE HERE then I will give you an additional entry for every $5 you donate to the cause.

In summation:

Comment telling cancer to suck it = 1 entry

Donation to Relay For Life = 1 entry per every $5

A New 10k PR!

That's me in obnoxious day-glo yellow.

What could possibly cause me to get my lazy butt in front of a computer and write a new post for this dilapidated blog? The only possible answers are that I’m back to brag about getting either a new PR or a new pair of shoes for free; in this case it’s both! Go me!

This past Memorial Day was the Bolder Boulder 10k and I ran it in 51:27 which is a 40 second PR. To say that I’m pleased with that time is a gross understatement. My last PR at the 10k distance was in 2008 during the Bush administration. It’s been an eternity since I showed any improvement at the 10k distance and it was getting difficult to keep my ego as inflated as I like it.

So, what was the cause of my new found speed? Was it hard work and training? Hardly. Was it tons and tons of intervals? No thank you. It was as easy as dropping this extra 15lbs that I’ve been carrying around since the Clinton administration. Would you believe that being 15lbs lighter allows you to be faster? Crazy, huh? The product whore in me also wants to tell you that it was probably partially due to the fact that I was wearing those free Saucony Kinvaras that I mentioned in the previous post. I bet they make you run faster.

As for the new pair of shoes that I mentioned in the opening paragraph I’ll have more about those later (probably much later given my recent posting frequency). For now let’s just say that Mizuno has invited me to be a part of the Mezamashii project which I can only assume has something to do with forgiveness and being kind to your enemies since I’ve only ever had bad things to say about Mizuno on this blog. One time I even wrote a limerick about my Mizunos. You can find out more about the Mezamashii Project here including the literal translation of the word which is from the Japanese, ‘meza’ meaning can’t be bothered and ‘mashii’ meaning to check for previous posts on the topic. The Japanese language is such a compact yet oddly specific language.

Oh yes, again

Yeah, this just happened. I'll have a new post coming next week sometime wherein I will rename my first child Saucony.

Saucony Kinvara 3

These Boots Are Made for Running

I have no idea who Jeremy Scott is but apparently he’s some kind of fashion designer that is finally bringing some Southwestern flair to the sports world. Just check out these running boots!

I don’t mean to imply that these shoes are out there but Lady Gaga’s wardrobe consultant was taken aback by them. I however am in love with them. I simply must have a pair. Race photographers would be unable to snap just one picture of you if you were wearing a pair of these bad boys, especially if I were to pair them with my bikini briefs and a mesh tank top. Oh how I long to race in some Adidas boots.

Don’t worry ladies, Jeremy Scott didn’t stop after he envisioned the Men’s boot, he rode the crazy train all the way to toon town so there’s a lady’s version too.

They’re still probably safer than running in Reebok EasyTones. All you need now is a dri-fit cowboy hat to complete the ensemble. Speaking of completing the ensemble, you can check out all of Scott’s hallucinations at his Adidas product page which includes winged shoes, gorilla shoes and even fringed track pants. Yes, fringed track pants! So many jokes to be made and so little time to do it in.

Hat Tip: With Leather