Announcing the Shave Your 5K Challenge

I’ve stated previously that my goal is to get faster this year, and I’ve read countless other blogs where many of you have stated the same thing. With that in mind, I’m announcing the Shave Your 5K Challenge. Here’s how it will work: You’ll enter a 5K race sometime before March 31st ‘08 and you’ll e-mail me your official time, this will be your “stubble time” (i.e. un-shaven time). I’ll keep track of everyone’s times and then we’ll all run 5K’s again at the end of the year which will give you your “smooth time” (i.e. freshly shaved time). Whoever shows the greatest difference between their stubble time and their smooth time is the winner. Before you go getting any brilliant ideas let me clarify that to state the greatest difference in a negative direction wins, loopholers.

Everyone who posts a better time at year-end will be subject to my superfluously lavish praise while anyone who posts a worse time at year-end will have to suffer my stinging wit and sarcasm. But best of all, everyone who supplies me with their blog address will get a link when I post the results, and I know you all want a little link love. It’s what we bloggers crave more than air itself.

Qualifying months for running your stubble time will be from December ‘07 through March ‘08, so you may have already run a race that qualifies you for the Shave Your 5K Challenge. Qualifying months for running your smooth time will be November ‘08 through December ‘08 which means that this challenge will last for the entire year, or longer than 70% of Pam Anderson’s marriages.

Prizes will be awarded to the top finishers in two categories: Highest Percentage of Time Shaved, and Most Actual Seconds Shaved. If we have a lot of entrants prizes may also be awarded for 2nd and 3rd place. Real prizes like a “Shave Your 5K” technical running shirt or other highly coveted running booty.

All I ask in return is for some help publicizing the event, so if you plan on entering and you have a blog then please mention it - feel free to steal the graphic from this post.

The real beauty of this event is that it should be easier for newer (or slower) runners to shave minutes off their 5K time than for someone who’s running 18 minute 5Ks, while it will be easier for the 18 minute 5K’ers to shear off percentage points. At least I think that makes sense. Also, you were probably already planning on running 5Ks during the qualifying months so you can enter this event without having to run any additional miles. BRILLIANT!

Official Terms and Conditions
Let me know in the comments if you plan on participating so that I can have an idea of the number of participants that we’ll have. I’ll also start a group over at the Runner’s Lounge to clarify any issues and for general discussion (SY5K Runner's Lounge Group). To enter you must e-mail me your name (or online identity), your 5K time, the name and date of the race.

If you run multiple 5Ks between December ‘07 and March ‘08 then you MUST submit your best time for your stubble time. If you run multiple 5Ks between November ‘08 and December ‘08 you may use your best time as your smooth time. If you’ve already run a 5K this month or in December, you can e-mail me your entry today. Just be sure to update me if you run a faster one before the end of March.

Your 5Ks must be completed as part of an official race and you must use the official time that the race issues. If possible you should provide me with proof of your time.

NO CHEATING. You’re only cheating yourself everyone else who participates, so don’t do it. Cheaters will be persecuted, yes persecuted. I will be checking everyone’s race times, and will be comparing them to your posted training times and any other races you run, I reserve the right to disqualify anyone who submits a stubble time that I feel is significantly slower than it should be. I also reserve the right to disqualify anyone who runs their 5K wearing Nebraska red or Yankee pinstripes. You know who you are.

If you need me to make an exception to these rules and you feel that you have a valid reason, then please e-mail me, I’m a reasonable guy. Reasonably handsome that is.

Update: See the Shave Your 5K Ammendment.

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.

Cold Weather Running Gear?

I’m going to start off the Weekend Splits by pimping an article that I “found” over at CRN. It was a delightful piece about running superstitions written by some handsome devil that goes by the name of Ian. Yes, I realize that I linked to it earlier this week and yes, I realize that I’ve been doing a lot of shameless self-promotion lately but hey, pimpin’ aint easy.

Thanks to Jess at 21 Days for linking to a post at AL-KO-HALL called 7 Minute Muscle. What a great idea! Unfortunately for me I don’t have 7 free minutes a day that I could spend on this program otherwise I’d give it a try for sure.

J-Money went treadmilling at the gym and while that doesn’t sound like it would make for an exciting post I can assure you it is, mostly because she left her brand new puppy alone with her furniture. Be careful if you head on over to her blog, there is seriously dog pee everywhere over there. It’s kinda gross. And if you like those type of stories be sure to check out her new blog (Things I Tell My Dog).

Frayed Laces has an interesting post exposing the seedy dark underworld of running shoe sales. She is doing some fine investigative work over there and keeping the rest of us safe from evil companies like Brooks. OK that might not be fair to Brooks, but since when have I been interested in fairness?

The Joggler has a post about how running alone won’t help you lose weight. You mean I have to run with someone to lose weight? Oh. No, I see. You mean that just running won’t help you lose weight - you need to watch your food intake too. What a crock! I took up running so that I wouldn’t have to do that.

Random Non-Running Related Video of the Week
This week’s video is a clip from Whose Line Is It Anyway guest starring your favorite fitness guru Richard Simmons. If you’ve never seen the show it’s an improv show and in this particular clip two of the comedians have to use two people (one of whom is Richard Simmons) as the props in the scene they are acting out.

Have a great weekend everyone! Happy running!
Be sure to come back on Monday morning because I have a BIG announcement. I’m such a tease.

Katie Holmes not running Boston Marathon

If you’re like me, you probably saw that headline and thought “well of course Katie Holmes isn’t running the Boston Marathon, she didn’t post a good enough time to qualify.” That didn’t stop all kinds of reports from circulating this morning claiming that she had registered for the Boston Marathon.

As you may remember from this post Katie finished the NYC Marathon in 5:29:58 which is within spitting distance of qualifying for the Boston Marathon... if you’re a camel and spitting off the side of the Grand Canyon. However it is not that unusual for exemptions to be made by the Boston Marathon to allow non-qualifiers to run in the race, and if you think for one second that they weren’t going to make an exemption for the hot chick that ran NYC without a bra, then you’re kidding yourself.

Is it fair that someone famous gets an exemption just for being famous while a handsome blogger has to earn his way in? Probably not, but it’s not my place to complain. Some may point out that it isn’t fair that I was blessed with a rapier wit, devastating charm and a beautiful family, to which I respond with “yuh-huh!”

It really doesn’t matter whether it’s fair or not because Katie’s rep came out this morning and stated that she’s not going to run the Boston Marathon because her controlling, super-freak of a husband won’t allow it. (I might have made up that last part but it sounded good, and plausible too.)

How is it that this non-news was worthy of a post here at Half-Fast? Quite simply it was just another excuse to post a picture of Katie Holmes. Perhaps tomorrow I will report that Eva Mendes and Jessica Alba are not running the Boston Marathon just so I can post pictures of them too. You see what I did there?

Source - I feel so ashamed that I just used People magazine for a source.

Mixing your Brands

I had a good run last night. My streetlight turned off again, but didn’t attempt any other form of communication with me. That’s OK though because I was moving too fast to pay any attention to it. I decided to make last night’s run a tempo run, and see how fast I could rip off 4 miles. Answer: 34:23

Here are my splits:
Mile 1 - 8:42
Mile 2 - 8:29
Mile 3 - 8:33
Mile 4 - 8:39

I was feeling pretty good about the effort when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The first thing I noticed (other than my chiseled physique) was that my clothes did not match at all, and I don’t mean color wise. I had completely mismatched my brands. I was wearing a C9 (Target brand) base layer, a Nike technical shirt, Adidas pants, Under Armor gloves, Brooks socks, Mizuno shoes and Calvin Klein underwear uh... just ignore that last one. It’s no wonder that I ran so fast, think of all the slogans that those brands represent: Just Do It (Nike), Impossible Is Nothing (Adidas), Never Never Never Stop* (Brooks), Serious Performance (Mizuno), Protect This House, (Under Armor), and Expect More Pay Less (Target). OK, well maybe not that last one, but the rest of them are inspirational. It’s no wonder that I ran so well last night.

Just think what I could have done if I’d been wearing my Reebok hat too. Reebok: Run Easy ... oh... wait... actually, never mind. In conclusion, I think the key to running faster is mixing up all your brand slogans. Give it a try!

* I really couldn’t find a Brooks slogan anywhere except this link which talks about them using the slogan mentioned above, but the article is dated July 1991.

The Complete Running Network

This is all that you’re going to get for a post from me today because I have a new post up over at CRN. Most of you are probably familiar with the Complete Running Network as the largest single collection of running blogs on the planet earth. I’ll be posting over at CRN once or twice a month and on those days I probably won’t write a real post here at Half-Fast because two new posts from Vanilla in one day would be more than you could handle. Too much of a good thing is not a good thing - Yeah, I don’t really understand the logic of that expression either but if I can use it to get out of writing another post then that’s good enough for me.

Head on over to CRN and check out my post about superstitions but before you go allow me to make the following public service announcement from CRN:

Most people around here know about the Running Blog Family Directory (RBF) - the web's most ginormous list of running blogs.

Until yesterday, the RBF was a one trick pony - it was just a big ol' list.

Well, the RBF just went through a huge upgrade. It's now search-able in a big, big way. You can now search for blogs by:

• Location (city/town/province/state/country)
• Gender
• Favorite Distance to Race
• Ability
• Tags/Key Words

And, much more!

But, we need your help to realize the RBFs full potential. Why? Because, right now, we have over 1600 links in the RBF that don't contain things like:

• Location (city/town/province/state/country)
• Gender
• Favorite Distance to Race
• Ability
• Tags/Key Words

So we're asking every blogger (you!) to submit a new listing for their blog. Don't worry about the old duplicate - we'll remove that.

By signing up again, you'll make it easier for people to find you. That's when the RBF will really rock!

So get on the RBF train and sign up (again!) today!

Close Encounters

I think something HUGE might have happened on my run this morning. About 2 miles into the run I turned onto York Street and as I approached the 3rd streetlight it turned off, blanketing me in darkness. It has done this on a couple of occasions before and I have rarely paid attention to it, in fact, it has almost become a game to see if I can make it past the light before it turns off. So when it turned off this time I didn’t panic like a scared little rabbit as I did the first time it happened as a lesser man might have. I continued on down the street, but as I passed the light something new happened. If flicked back on and then off again and then it flickered at me a few more times before turning back on.

I continued on down the street and suddenly it occurred to me that the light wasn’t just randomly blinking. It was using Morse code! It was trying to communicate with me! I stopped in my tracks and tried to remember the sequence of flashes. I don’t know Morse code and unfortunately I forgot to take my Morse code secret decoder ring with me when I left the house, but I knew if I could remember the sequence of dots and dashes I could look it up online. I know that SOS is ... --- ... but this wasn’t a symmetrical pattern. It was more like ..-. ..- --.--- I turned around and improvised a quick speed session back to the light. I stopped under the light completely out of breath and stared up at it, waiting for it to repeat its message to me. The light did not flash. It remained on, a steady beacon of defiance. I pleaded with it, “can you say that again?” Nothing. “I didn’t understand.” Still nothing.

It occurred to me how stupid I was being trying to talk to a streetlight that had no ears. In a moment of brilliance I held my Garmin up high in the air and flashed the backlight. Of course as I mentioned all I know in Morse code is SOS, so that was the signal I sent but surely it would respond to me now. Surprisingly, still nothing. Perhaps someone else was watching and the streetlight’s message was for my eyes only.

I finished my run in a state of disappointment. I mean, how many times does a streetlight try to communicate with you? And I missed it. I am sure that if I keep running in the wee hours of the morning that the light will try again, and next time I’ll be ready for it.

When I arrived back home and awoke my wife to tell her about my exciting discovery she rolled her eyes at me, rolled over to go back to sleep and then said “the bulb probably just needs replaced.” She thinks she’s soooo smart. The bulb needs something alright, and it was important enough that it was trying to tell me.

I’ll be back my incandescent friend. I’ll be back.

Weekend Splits

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You Won’t Find It Here

A few months ago I posted some of the interesting Google searches that led people to Half-Fast (Finding Half-Fast). There were some very strange and bizarre searches to be sure and due to morbid curiosity I have continued to track what search terms are bringing people in to my blog. I’m afraid to report that it is even worse than the last time I did this. Over the last few months the phrases below have led people here but I seriously doubt that they found what they were looking for.

The below list has NOT been edited for spelling, grammar or sheer alarmingness - what? It’s a word, if it’s not it should be. (My commentary in parentheses.)

• treadmill placement
• stretch my balls (Excuse me?)
• why do my balls ache (See above.)
• how to stop urself from peeing your pants
• pictures of me peeing my pants
• women who has to pee bad
• i pee myself wet pants
• "pee on me" shirt (???)
• squat pee marathon running (Do I really post about peeing that much?)
• I've got the poison, I've got the lemonade (Note to self: Don’t drink the lemonade.)
• do guys like matthew mcconaughey (What’s not to like. He’s dreamy.)
• what to write to a girl for the first time (Nothing from this list.)
• "write like a girl"
• how to sound like a girl (This is troubling in so many different ways.)
• tear away underwear (Rrrawr!)
• longest flaccid penis (Why yes, yes it is thankyouverymuch.)
• jessica simpson stems
• SLIPPERY LIFE WET JACKETS (Sounds fun.)
• katie holmes no underwear (Also sounds fun.)
• slutty wife half bra (Sounds offensive.)
• running dog treadmill pooping (crazy weirdo searching disturbed)
• hairy runner
• world's longest human tongues
• elite runners blogs (Bwaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha!)
• john wayne bobbit blogspot
• just f@%&ing give me an elevation map (Frustrated much? – Note, I did edit this one.)
• running inspiration

That last one really cracks me up. Inspiration, really? Inspiration is like a shooting star - you won’t find either one here at Half-Fast. Have a great Friday everyone, I can’t believe that it’s already the weekend. These 3 day work weeks are really kicking my butt.

Shameless Self-Promotion

Here we are only three days and two posts into 2008 and I’m going to take a break from writing about running to tell you about a new blog that I have started. Of late I have been writing down some stories about my two boys so that I don’t forget them, the stories not the boys. I want to be sure to have some good material to use at their weddings.

In order to demonstrate why I love my boys and to really capture how I feel about them the site is named Daddy’s Little Tax Credits. I realize that the target demographic for this site is slightly different, and there are many of you here who probably don’t care to read about all the crazy things that my kids do, but I wanted to mention it anyway.

Don’t worry, it will not take time away from my posting here at Half-Fast. My goal is to post something once a week or maybe once every couple of weeks over at Daddy’s Little Tax Credits. I was originally going to keep the site for my family only, but some of the stories needed to be shared with the world. That’s one of the things you get to do as a parent - embarrass your kids.

If you have kids I think you’ll be able to relate, if you don’t it will serve as a deterrent, and if you’re pregnant it will probably make you cry a lot. Head on over and check it out. Daddy’s Little Tax Credits.

By the way, this is the 200th post at Half-Fast. It passes with a lot less fanfare than the 100th post did.

Welcome to 2008

This pretty much mirrors my response to resolutions.

I’m back at work from a long break, which means more regular blog posts and more regular reading of all of your blog posts. I came into my office this morning and was horrified to find both my e-mail and voicemail inboxes overflowing. In the spirit of a new year and a fresh start I just deleted all the new messages and decided to leave the past in the past. Don’t people know that I’ve got a blog to write? I can’t be spending my time here at work answering e-mails and returning calls. How would I ever get anything posted?

As I said in my year in review post, the main goal this year is to get faster. With that in mind I will try to be more consistent about doing speedwork and tempo runs as a regular part of my training. As for what races I plan on running, here they are:

• Bolder Boulder 10K
• Denver Half Marathon
• Colder Bolder 5K

Why so few? To give everyone else a fighting chance, of course. Actually, I always run the Bolder Boulder, and the Denver Half Marathon and Colder Bolder 5K were two of my favorite races last year, so that’s why I’m listing those three. I am planning on running several other races this year but I like to keep my options open. I’m considering running the following races but in typical guy fashion I don’t want to commit to them just yet:

• Nancy’s 9 on the 9th (Feb 9) – Nancy, you’d have had me for sure with a 2 on the 2nd.
• Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon (Aug 9) – It’s all downhill.
• Boulder Backroads Half Marathon (Sep 21)
• Rudolph’s Revenge (Dec) – Just because I missed it this past year.

I will also probably run several local 5Ks this year but I like to be spontaneous about those. I like to fly by the seat of my pants, because I’m a wild and crazy guy who can’t be tied down to a restrictive schedule. Or maybe I’m just too lazy to put in all the planning work and find some 5Ks right now, you’ll have to decide for yourself.

Image credit to KissingSuzyKolber who probably stole it from somewhere else anyway.