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.

The above picture had me in tears laughing. Looking at it now I’m not all that sure why, but perhaps it had something to do with the bottle of wine that I had just consumed before I opened Chuckie V’s blog and found the picture.

Fitness Fixation reviewed the Baywatch Beach Body Workout and was decidedly against it. While I agree with Kelly’s assessment in principle I would like to advise her not to “Hassel the Hoff.” Ladies, no need to thank me for the eye candy to the right. You are welcome.

Congrats to Amy Lawson who ran a new PR in her marathon last weekend! Now comes the good part Amy, rewarding your effort by overindulging and running less. At least I imagine that’s what I would do if I ever ran a marathon.

Frayed Laces also ran a marathon last weekend (race report Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3), but in order to make it more challenging did so with a broken pelvis. Yes, you read that right. Broken. Pelvis! I hurt just thinking about a broken pelvis, let alone attempting to run a marathon with one. In fact if I ever break my pelvis I will just have myself euthanized so I don’t have to deal with the pain. Big ups to Frayed Laces. Get well soon.

Keep your eyes open for Just Your Average Joggler when you’re out driving around this weekend. It turns out he’s a menace to society, jaywalking and who knows what else.

Random Non-Running Related Video of the Week
This weeks video goes out to all those of you who will be travelling over the holidays. Have you ever been on a plane that felt like it swerved a little when it touched down on the runway? My guess is that you were landing in a crosswind. Do you have any idea how airplanes land in crosswind conditions? I didn’t until I saw the video below.



Have a great weekend everyone.

Half-Fast Has Moved!

Half-Fast has moved to a new URL! My new web address is www.half-fast.org which you can hopefully see in the address bar above. It’s exciting news to say the least and I’m betting that you’ve got a ton of questions which I why I’ve created the following NSFAQ (that’s Not So Frequently Asked Questions).

Q. What will happen to the old half-fast.blogspot.com address?
A. It will still work for now. It will forward you to the new www.half-fast.org address until I stop using blogger and switch to a different blog hosting service.

Q. Should I update my links to reflect this new URL?
A. Yes, do it. Do it now.

Q. What if I don’t currently link to Half-Fast?
A. What if I take my boot and shove it up your keister? Go and remedy the error of your ways immediately, and then seek forgiveness while there is still time.

Q. Why did you pick www.half-fast.org?
A. Several reasons, half-fast.com would have been my first choice but that was taken and the joker that runs that lame site wouldn’t respond to any of my e-mails despite the fact that I offered him a very nice half marathon medal, a vanilla Clif Shot and an 8 oz beer to part with his domain name. Whatever. Thanks a lot, jerk! I bet no one even visits his website anyway. My second choice would have been halffast.com (no hyphen) and that one is actually available... for the bargain price of $2,088. Unfortunately that’s roughly $2,078 more than I was willing to spend, but if you are a wealthy, philanthropic runner who was looking for the perfect gift to give Vanilla over the holiday season I can’t think of anything better.

Q. What would you be willing to do in exchange for the halffast.com domain name?
A. Pretty much anything. I’ll link to your site, I’ll write a glowing race report for you that you can post as your own, I’ll write about your favorite charity, I’ll write your life biography that details how you were single-handedly responsible for ending the cold war, curing Alzheimer’s, and patching the hole in the ozone. Heck, I’ll even give you one of my children.

Q. Will Santa be able to find you at this new address?
A. If he knows what’s good for him he will.

Q. Will this be a seamless transition to the new URL?
A. No, absolutely not. Knowing blogger there will indubitably be some problems. Please, please, please let me know if you experience any problems like pictures not showing up, links not working, or a strange burning sensation when you pee. (I hate that!) Also, for those of you who read Half-Fast in a reader or via the feed let me know if there are any problems with that.

Q. Have you seen my glasses?
A. You took them off to read the directions on that Tylenol bottle and left them next to the medicine cabinet.

Q. Does the new official looking URL mean that we can expect more or better quality posts?
A. No. Are you even paying attention to what you’re reading? I’m in the middle of a NSFAQ post for crying out loud.

Q. Have you seen Val Kilmer’s shoes lately?
A. No, and neither has he! (Ba Boom Cha!)

Q. Are you now too big to reply to my e-mails?
A. Yes I am, but one of the downsides of being better than everyone else is that people tend to assume that you’re pretentious. In order to avoid that perception I will still respond to all your e-mails.

Q. Is there any truth to the rumor that your name was mentioned yesterday in the Mitchell Report?
A. No comment.

Q. Is it true that you have not run at all this week since deciding to quit the Rudolph’s Revenge 10K?
A. Whoa! Look at that, we’re all out of time here folks. If you have any other allegations questions please feel free to e-mail them to me and I’ll be happy to dodge, deflect, and deny with the poise and indignation of a cheater baseball player.

Nobody Likes a Quitter

I’m quitting the Rudolph’s Revenge 10K that I had planned for this Saturday. I don’t think they’ll actually cancel the race when they realize that I won’t be running it, but it will probably feel like they should have. Due to some other things that have come up, (a friend’s kid’s birthday party that I feel like I should attend) I will have to miss this race. To be quite honest I don’t really know that it’s accurate to say that I’m going to ‘miss’ it, but I certainly won’t be in attendance.

I’m a little bummed about it but also a little relieved. This brings my racing season to an end as of last Saturday, which in turn means that I can get off my strict runners diet of low fat cheesecake and baked lays potato chips and get back to the salty greasy full-fat chips that I love so much, hopefully they’ll have some at the birthday party. You know... for the kids.

I am disappointed because I know that at least a couple of you were going to be running the race and I was looking forward to meeting you. I know that you’ll miss me, but you’ll pull through, I’m certain of it. And you know what they say: If life deals you lemons... just add vodka. So instead of running a race at 10am this Saturday, I’ll be at a birthday party, drinking. Wait, what? What do you mean they don’t serve alcohol at kid’s parties? If there’s one kind of party where it should be mandatory to serve alcohol it’s a 3-year-old’s birthday party. Have you ever been to one? Kids running around all hopped up on cake and fruit punch. It’s dreadful. I want to have a drink just thinking about it, and you know what? I think I will. After all, I’m not ‘in training’ any more.

8 on the 8th

Warning: Half-Fast not responsible for hours lost staring into those steely blue eyes.
I awoke on Saturday ready to run 8 miles only to find it cold and snowy. I almost bagged the whole idea in favor of hot cocoa and gingerbread cookies in front of the fire. I wish I would have. Instead I drove to a 1.4 mile loop that circumnavigates a small lake near my house, strapped on my Garmin and commenced operation crazy.

When I began the first lap at 10am mine were the only footprints to blemish the pristine snow that covered the loop. A fresh start. Here I was being a hardcore runner and there was no one around to witness it, nevertheless I was excited to be alone with my thoughts. Alone with the exception of my digital training partner, whom I’ve decided to name Gustavo. (Thanks to Doug for that suggestion.) I set Gustavo out at an 8:50 pace as I was hoping to complete the run in 1:10:00.

Roughly one tenth of a mile into the run I noticed that my right shoe had a fairly large rock jammed into the cavity in the heel. Just my dumb luck I chuckled to myself and stopped quickly to pry it out. What I discovered was not a rock, but a snowball. As I ran the snow would press up into the cavity in the heel (see Figure 1.1) until it was full, at which point the snow on the ground would stick to the snow packed into the cavity and cause a buildup. It was like trying to run in heels that were getting progressively taller with each step, or at least what I would imagine it’s like to run in heels. Despite the fact that I felt like a saucy minx for wearing “heels” I was convinced that this was not a healthy way to run 8 miles.

Strangely enough, this snowball effect was occurring mostly in my right shoe. I tried everything to stop it, I tried landing more on my forefoot, I tried stopping and scrapping it out with a stick, I tried to ignore it, I tried cursing like a sailor on leave which didn’t abate the problem but it sure made me feel better. In the end the only solution was to thump my heel down hard into the gravel path under the snow and then drag my heel. This seemed to work to clear it out, but I ended up having to do this every 50 yards. For 8 miles. I considered quitting many times, and even now while I write this I do not know why I didn’t. Trust me, it’s totally in my personality to just give up and quit when the going gets tough, but for some reason I hung in there on Saturday.

Figure 1.1

As I began my final lap, I noted that my footprints had been joined by a few others. One jogger, and a couple of walkers who had no doubt puzzled over the man with the epileptic twitch in his stride. The path which had once looked like a fresh white canvas was now forever ruined by the punch marks in its surface, the scars of a frustrated runner etched into it by my spastic heel-dragging routine.

My Garmin beeped signaled that I had completed the 8 miles. My final time was 1:13:11 for a pace of 9:09. Gustavo had long since finished. He was already at home in front of my fireplace, drinking my hot cocoa, eating my cookies.

Thanks to Nancy for putting this together, you can visit her blog to see everyone’s final times. It was fun. Honestly. Also, Mizuno running shoes suck!

Site News - Housekeeping

I’d like to take care of couple of housekeeping items. (My wife is shaking her head in disbelief right now because she didn’t think that word was even in my vocabulary.)

1. Allow me to apologize for the lack of posts around here lately, there’s a very good explanation for it but I don’t feel like talking about it, so back off man! I am getting back to my regular schedule of posting 4-5 times during the week and once on Saturday for the Weekend Splits. This will continue until Christmas when I will post about as often as I do actual housekeeping, and boy won't those be crazy days what with all the flying pigs and hell having frozen over.

2. I’d like to welcome my real-life friends to my blog. Yes I have real live friends, and no, I hadn’t told them that I had a blog. Why? Because very few (if any) of them are as passionate about running as I am and also because I didn’t want them to know how much of a geek I really was. Last week a friend of mine found Half-Fast and soon realized that Vanilla was a guy that he’d known for the last 15 years. I think it was the race pictures that tipped him off. Yes this blog is written by Ian. Yes, THAT Ian - as if you knew any other Ian’s.

3. I will post an 8 on the 8th virtual race report this evening, or maybe tomorrow morning, or whenever I feel like doing so. I was originally planning on posting this on Saturday, but rest assured it will be worth the wait.

4. I am fully aware that I said I was going to take care of “a couple” of housekeeping items and then posted 4 bullet points. I am also fully aware that “a couple” means 2, but perhaps bullet points 3 and 4 are not considered housekeeping items. Did that even occur to you before you jumped to point out my mistake? No. Perhaps it would have been easier to just go back and edit my original sentence to say “4 housekeeping items” but that’s just not my style.

Colder Bolder Race Pictures

Thank you all for your condolences and kind comments on yesterday’s post. I debated taking a week off from posting at Half-Fast given the circumstances, but what better way to honor a writer than to keep writing. Besides, getting back to normal can only help, so here are some race pictures from Sunday’s Colder Bolder 5K. (For those of you who ran it, here is the link to all the Colder Bolder race pictures.)

The first picture here features some guy in a Santa Hat. He was a good 30 - 40 feet ahead of me for most of the race. I decided to run him down at the beginning of the final mile and it took me forever to pass him, but I eventually did. Passing Santa doesn’t automatically relegate you to the naughty list does it? That’s me behind him in the white shirt with gray sleeves, we have less than a half mile to go in that picture. Not pictured: the little kid who blew past me like I was sap oozing down a tree trunk.


You can see in the picture below that I have removed my gloves and shoved them into my pockets. It didn’t occur to me at the time that doing so might make my pants look like standard issue Nazi fatigues. Maybe next time instead of my pockets I’ll just shove my gloves down the front of my pants. BAM! How do you like my race pictures now? Still not pictured: little kid who blew past me. I think he must have cheated and taken a short cut. It’s the only viable explanation as to how I got “kidded” which, for the record is not quite as bad as getting “chicked”.

Finally, just because I got such a positive response the last time I posted a picture of my kids, here is another picture of Cheer Team Vanilla. They are my motivation to run. Not in a I-want-to-be-healthy-to-see-them-grow-up kind of way, but more in a looking-for-any-excuse-to-get-out-of-this-crazy-house-so-I’ll-go-run kind of way.

More COWBELL!!

In Memory

It is with a heavy heart that I write this post. I learned late Sunday night that a friend of mine, Jason Wenger, was shot and killed in Spenard, AK on Sunday morning. Jason was a dear friend and an inspiration to me as a writer. I have tried on several occasions to sit down and write a post for today, but I don’t have it in me to be funny right now. There will be no humor today at Half-Fast, there will be no post today that is “...dripping with thick snazzberry syrup sarcasm” – a phrase that was originally penned by my late friend Jason Wenger.

I will miss Jason dearly. I will miss his goofy smile. I will miss his passion. I will miss trading literary barbs with him in our fantasy football league, mundane as that may sound.

I wish that I could write something that would adequately eulogize Jason in a manner that I feel is appropriate, but I will never be as eloquent as he was. I found the following on the Jason Wenger Memorial Blog, it is the conclusion to a paper that Jason wrote a year ago:

“... it is my responsibility as a lover of fiction to be an active member in my community and world. In the case of many writers, this activity takes shape in politics and action. Here I must again admit my shortcomings. My heart is much more drawn to the individual, rather than the population. I suppose this is again representative of my world view. I believe in individual and personal civil service. I hope to remain humble, and to emulate the example of the servant, Jesus Christ. I do not wish this for myself in order to gain respect, admiration, or a ticket stub that certifies my entrance to heaven. On the contrary, I don’t believe I can earn such grace or mercy. But in striving to live my life as a servant, I pray that God will bless me with the wisdom to suffer the intolerance of my sin, and the ability to strengthen my love for Him and His creation. If in the act of service, I continue to gain ideas, experience conflicts, empathize with characters, benefit my fellow man and take notes, I will consider myself worthy to be called a writer.”

I do not grieve like those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4: 13, 14) for Jason was above all else a God fearing man and I will see my friend again when I arrive in heaven. Until that time, I will remember fondly our fellowship on this earth and look forward to continuing that fellowship in eternity. My thoughts and prayers continue to be with Jason's family who have suffered a greater loss than I.

My friend and brother in Christ, Jason Wenger (Jan. 30, 1980 – Dec. 2, 2007)

Wind, I Hate It

Colder Bolder 5K Race Report

I knew that it was going to be cold on Sunday while I was attempting to PR at the Colder Bolder 5K, but I had no idea that it was going to be so windy. I HATE wind. It was 34 degrees outside and the average wind speed was 13mph with gusts registering speeds upwards of 28mph.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Colder Bolder it consists of 13 separate races. Each of the first 12 races are invitational races where runners are invited to participate based on their Bolder Boulder 10K time from earlier in the year. The 13th race is an open race for runners who didn’t run the Bolder Boulder. I guess that’s how an open race works. I was invited to the 10th race which was for runners who finished the Bolder Boulder between 56:00 and 57:59. The idea is that everyone can be competitive in each of the races, but looking at past results it seemed that there were always a few runners in each race that were somewhat ahead of the curve.

I stood at the line with 65 other runners, none of whom had run the Bolder Boulder any faster than me (56:00) 6 months earlier. I had set myself a goal of running an 8:00 minute mile pace and I felt like I should be able to stay with the front runners. When the air horn sounded it was evident that all 65 runners felt the same way and we all started out faster than Thanksgiving shoppers bursting in to Target at 6am. After a quarter mile I checked my Garmin to reveal that we were running at a 6:24 minute mile pace! To be quite honest I didn’t even think I was capable of running at that speed. I slowed down and watched droves of runners overtake me. At that point I was probably in 40th place and I decided to focus on beating my PR instead of beating all the other speedsters out there.

At the half mile mark we turned a corner and were met head on with a gusting wind and slight hill. All of a sudden we were back to being the slower runners that we were supposed to be. Somewhere in Antarctica Heinz ketchup was flowing out of a bottle at a faster pace than we were moving. We ran into a headwind for most of mile 2 and even though I didn’t feel like I was moving very fast I found myself passing a lot of seemingly winded runners.

I ended up finishing 15th in my race with a time of 25:56 which is a new PR. My splits were reflective of the headwind we faced: 8:11 – 9:02 – 8:11. I was hoping for something a little better, but I’ll take it given the circumstances.

When we got home from the race I got up on the roof and put up our Christmas lights, we’re going with blue this year. (Just like the last 5 years.) Once the lights were up I was starting to feel pretty chilled and I knew that it was time for an ice bath, Half-Fast style.

Cheer Team Vanilla once again braved the cold for the opportunity to ring their cowbells.

Daddy didn’t get to the podium but Cheer Team Vanilla is #1 (and #3).

All you can eat hot pancake breakfast = Why we run.

Personal Running Log - November 2007

My Colder Bolder Race Report is coming shortly.

Date	Route	Type	Distance	Time	Pace
11/29/2007	Misc Route	Tempo	6 Mi	55:50	9:19
11/24/2007	Home Treadmill	Long	8 Mi	1:19:19	9:55
11/23/2007	Misc Route	Easy	4 Mi	39:12	9:48
11/19/2007	Misc Route	Easy	5 Mi	48:46	9:46
11/17/2007	10 Mile Loop	Long	10 Mi	1:35:58	9:36
11/14/2007	Misc Route	Tempo	5 Mi	45:20	9:04
11/12/2007	Misc Route	Easy	5.05 Mi	47:37	9:26
11/10/2007	8 Miles Out & Back	Long	8 Mi	1:16:14	9:32
11/8/2007	Misc Route	Easy	5 Mi	47:19	9:28
11/7/2007	Home Treadmill	Interval	4 Mi	35:57	9:00
11/5/2007	Misc Route	Easy	5 Mi	48:55	9:47
11/3/2007	Misc Route	Long	7.78 Mi	1:21:38	10:30
11/1/2007	Home Treadmill	Tempo	3 Mi	26:57	8:59
Totals: Distance: 75.8 miles Total Time: 12:09:02

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.


Picture stolen from Dmitri’s blog “into the trails”.

The picture adequately sums up my feelings on treadmills, they are not for humans. I know that some of you disagree with me on this and for you folks, I recommend you check out the joggler. He suggests 5 mind tricks to make treadmill runs more interesting and I suggest that you take those 5 tricks, and stick’em where the sun don’t shine. The only mind trick that is going to help me get on the treadmill is the Jedi mind trick: “You love to run on the treadmill.” Yes, I love to run on the treadmill.

Tom over at the Runner’s Lounge has been doing a great job of posting gift ideas for the runner in your life. This was something that I was going to post about but he’s done such a great job at compiling gift lists for runners it would seem redundant for me to do it too when I can take the lazy route and just point you to his posts. Thanks for making it easy for me Tom! Books for runners. T-Shirts for runners. Other gifts for Runners. Also, while you’re there check out Amy’s suggestions on how to decorate your blog for the holidays, you know what just read all the posts and then subscribe to the feed. It’s all good.

Kelly at Fitness Fixation had a great post with the top 21 reasons that you should walk away from the table. Perhaps next year we could get this post a week before Thanksgiving instead of a week after?

Finally, Nancy found herself in a competition this past week with a hot young fitness intern chick and retells the tale of her epic battle here. The only disappointing part of the post is the lack of pictures of the hot young intern.

Apparently my blog requires a junior high reading level, which is appropriate because I have about the same maturity level. Like when I saw that, I was like no way? OMG like that is so TOTALLY appropriate. FWIW I soooo LOL'd at that and then I sent it to my BFF and he was like TOTALLY.

Well, that paragraph certainly won’t help. Perhaps it would ameliorate my ranking if I used more words of Brobdignagian proportions instead of such diminutive ones.

Random Non-Running Related Video of the Week
I discovered this video over at A Tale Told by an Idiot.

Authorities are currently looking for the bird in question. Rumor has it that he dyed his feathers a little darker and fled to the Cayman Islands and has gone into hiding. However his love for salty snack chips will be his downfall as he was spotted again at the beach. If you have any information as to the whereabouts of this bird then please contact local authorities immediately. No one's chips are safe until this fiend is locked up.