What Happened, St Louis?

St. Louie, I Hardly Knew Yee

You know those weekends where its goes by so fast that you are realizing its already Wednesday of the following week. Yep that's me!

Had a whirlwind weekend in St Louis with my girlfriend, Lisa. Here cousin was getting married and I was along for the ride! It was a simple equation really

Free Plane Ride (Thanks for using your miles on this guy, Lisa!) + Reception @ Busch Stadium = Must See Wedding


That's right, the reception was at the new/updated ball park where the Sox won the world series (single tear of happiness inserted here). We got to go sit in the stadium seats, look out on an empty ballpark, it was awesome.

However, St Louis is..... quiet, nothing much else I can say. If we had one more day in St Louis we wouldn't know what to do with it after hitting all of the "must see spots" (Budweiser Brewery, the Arch, Zoo, couple restaurants) you really run out of things to do. I guess the economy really hit St Louie hard.


The one thing you MUST do in St Louis is go to the Budweiser Brewery, it really is awesome. They have a Beer School and we got our diploma! The Arch is one of those things to see if you happen to be in St Louis. Don't go out of your way to go to the Arch (or St. Louis for that matter), but it is a cool site. Very cramped at the top and they keep piling people up there to stare out smaller-than-car-window sized windows.

On the Road Again

But now back to reality, back to running. Yesterday I got back on the road and did a solid 3. I was reminded of my training last week , I haven't done a 14 mile week in a few weeks! It felt good to be actually training for something again. My Eastern State 20-Miler training doesn't start until December, but I have my Turkey Trot in a couple weeks that I want to kick butt in!

Nerd Babble of the Day

In other news, for all nerd runners out there, or runners with significant other nerds I will end on this note. Monday night at midnight was the release of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. Anyone who is anyone should get this game. Obviously I was in line at midnight to get it, just adding to the list of my many midnight releases I have been to (such a nerd).

But in all honesty the game is very real and you can even play with your family (if they are into it). Imagine, you and you significant other creeping through the winter woods of Moscow, sniping guards without being noticed. Alright that's my nerd babble for the day. If you are on Xbox Live my gamercard is above with my info, game on!

Keep up the good training!

A Solid Hollow-ween Weekend

Get it?


I hope everyone had a great Halloween weekend! These little gems you see were carved by my girlfriend. Hopefully you are a big enough fan of The Office as I am and can tell that these are Andy Bernard (left) and Mr. Dwight K Schrute (right). Great job Lisa!


Obviously when you have 10+ people in your apartment, Rock Band will break out, and boy did it ever. Full participation, including Elmer's Glue on Vocals, and Slash on guitar! If I find a picture of myself I will bring it forward, I was Octomom, and lugged around 8 (plastic) babies the whole night, phew! Other appearances of the night included a Priest, Verruca Salt, a Cat, Philosophy Major (Starbucks Worker), an Accountant and Philip J. Fry and Turanga Leela from Futurama. Good times had by all.

Dream Dinners


For those following me on Twitter, you may have noticed I went to Dream Dinners this weekend. It is one of the coolest places I have been to since I have moved here last year. Dream Dinners is a create your own meal place, where there are stations set up and you put all the ingredients in a bag, freeze it and then cook it when you want to eat it. Obviously I was the only guy there, receiving sympathy from all of the other women there. Honestly I enjoyed being there and am hoping to go back soon! We made a couple chicken dishes and a salmon dish, mmmm! After that we went ice skating. For those that know me well I always mention that I am not good with anything strapped to my feet. But I didn't fall! I may have stumbled a bit but I kept my composer. This was the first time in a good 10 years I had attempted skating, I will definitely go again! It also helps to have a girlfriend who is a figure skater!

Run Big B, Run!
My running has picked up recently and this morning I did an unexpected 6.75 miles! I was heading out for 6 but only knew of one 6 mile route in my town which was a 10k race that started down the road from me. So I did that and some change. 5am...30 degrees...if the cold didn't wake me up and give me energy for 7 miles I don't know what did, I felt great!

Lottery
I put my name in the hat yesterday for the 2010 NYC Marathon Lottery. I am excited and hope I get chosen. I won't find out til March so for the time being I will forget I even entered, and continue training for the Turkey Trot in a couple weeks :).

All for now. What were you guys for Halloween? Keep up the good running!

The Sixth Sense Without Bruce Willis

Last night before going to bed, I looked myself in the mirror and talked to myself. Not necessarily a rare occurrence, but this one felt more powerful than other conversations.

What am I running for? More importantly, why have I been on such an on/off relationship with my running. A lot of factors go into it, but the main factors are excuses. Looking down at my tattoo on my right leg, I realize what I am running for. In May I ran 26.2 miles which ended one era of my life and began a new. I am a runner who has run a marathon, someone who went from nothing to something in the running world.

I said to myself that if I am serious about running I will make a commitment to myself, and more importantly to the people who I inspire through my running, and get out in the morning for a solid run. My alarm went off at 5:15 AM and I was out the door. Throughout the entire run I would picture one specific part of the Great Wall Marathon. Running the end of mile 15, about to head back up the Great Wall for the 2nd time in the race, I see my mom and I give her the biggest hug as she is crying. "Oh my god, you're going to do it" she said. Sure enough I ended up finishing, but it was that moment that stuck with me the entire way up the wall and back to the finish line.


All the while, I'm running in the pitch black morning. While my brain is somewhere else my eyes were focused on the road, analyzing every piece of the dark sidewalk and letting my feet know that a bump or a crack or a puddle is coming up. Looking forward to the next car to pass so I could get a sense of what road is coming up. I think this is the 6th sense us runners have (no Bruce Willis involved). Our feet are designed to assess the road as we are running without actually seeing the road. It was a great feeling and it was a refreshing run.

Other Running Highlights of the week
My first two a day was great on Monday. Ran 3 miles in the morning and did 3 miles on the treadmill dreadmill at the gym. It felt really good and it was a good kick start to the week.

Daily Mile

As of yesterday I have joined The Daily Mile, a great social media site for runners/exercisers. I only have a couple friends on their :( but if your on there add me! Click here for my page.

Eastern States 20 Miler
I have been looking for the perfect long distance race to get back into and I think I found it. The Eastern States 20 Miler. Starts in Maine, runs through New Hampshire and ends in Massachusetts! I know Lacey did it last year and even though it was a complete washout, had a great time. I think I have convinced my parents to train for it too!

All for now, hope everyone is having a great week. What are all of you dressing up as for Halloween?

4 Years, 4 Halfs- Lake Placid Half Marathon Report

I don't know the exact date, but I mark it on the calendar as September 7. September 7, 2005 was the day I looked myself in the mirror and decided to change my life for the better. That day I stopped drinking soda, my life blood. I easily polished off a couple liters a day at times, it was just so good! I knew if I could drop that bad habit I could possibly get on track to finding a healthier me.

The first month went by and I had last 15 pounds, probably from the pure anti sugar shock my body was going through. That year I had lost 37 pounds. I always said, some people gain the Freshman 15, but I lost the Sophomore 37 :).

Fast forward 4 years, and I have taken off 120 pounds and have yet to take a single SIP of soda, talk about quitting cold turkey! I always get asked if I am afraid to try soda again but the fact is I have no appetite for it anymore. However, the first soda I would run to if the sky was falling would be Dr. Pepper, don't kidyerself! It has been a crazy journey running so far, but I a, looking forward to 4 more years of being healthy and running strong.


As coincidence would have it, a little after my 4 year anniversary came my 4th half marathon. I ventured up to Lake Placid, NY. I will be honest, training was extremely week for this race, probably the least preparation of any of my other 12 races, and I blame it on the heat. Heat lead to laziness and laziness led to less speed work which was my initial goal, to PR at around 1:45:00.

In any case, I got up to Lake Placid to see my sister, who is large and in charge, but for good reason, 2 good reasons actually! She is having twins basically any week now. Check out here blog here! The blog is mainly for moms but I get a kick out of it.

Back to the race. The race started from where both Olympic ceremonies were held. How in the hell LP ever had the whole WORLD come to the small town for the Olympics TWICE is beyond me, but its a beautiful place no doubt. The gun goes off man yells "ready set go" and we are off. Only about 200 racers in this one, smallest race I have been in I think. I told myself not to start fast, and as per usual my body doesn't listen to my mind so I started out at a pretty good clip. Had to find a balnce somewhere around 8:30 min/mile if I wanted to finish strong.

The course loops around the first 2 miles and back to the starting area, where I stopped and saw Q, who was cheering from his stroller, and gave him a huge high 5. From there it was about 4.5 miles out and 4 back. The course was a very plain course with a hill or 2, but mostly winding roads. Around mil 6 I see the first place runner run past me. I knew that while I wasn't winning this one, I was keeping a good pace and will finish. I just kept pushing through the small knee pains and took every water stop.


At mile 8, the turn around, there was a little old lady with a platter of bags of gummy bears, my savior of the race award goes to her. Those things, although once broken in half will may go down the wrong tube, kept me going. I had 2 Gu's as well. A little over kill but I felt it was necessary.

I stayed around the same people for the whole race, each passing each other back and forth just to keep the sense of competition alive. Something about being on the "back" part of the out and back and running past runners still on the "out" part made me run strong. Again, a sense of competition never hurts ;).

Mile 12 I started to slow down a little, just mentally trying to prepare for the final mile. My watch made it seem as though I could PR, which was a surprise to me, but thanks to my starting a little faster than usual it would've been a slim chance. Until I met mile 13. Who know that running down a big hill at mil 4 meant I would eventually have to run back up it, ugh. The hill was a brutal one, and not at all what I needed to attempt a PR. So I took the hill slow, knowing I would still finish with a strong time.

The course has you run a small lap around the finish before finishing (really?! just lemme finish already!) and I kicked it hard to the finish at 1:50:39, my second best half!

All in all a great race! Thanks to my sister for the awesome race pics!

America is Body Concious

Consider this my Friday Op-Ed piece.

Have you noticed in the past year or so, the sizes of clothes in stores have been changing? Used to wearing a size "L"? Now you can easily fit into a size "M" or easily into a size "S" at some stores. Whats happening?

I think America may have a self conscious problem and is getting over it by making us feel better about the size of clothes we are wearing. Why can't stores stick to the size scale of yesterday? Why can't a Medium here be a Medium there? I don't think we will ever know. But I have some thoughts.

A recent trip to the Gap brought me to the realization that America is indeed getting fatter and shifting the scales to acclimate the Earth's ever expanding waistline. While I am an American Eagle size Large/Medium Marge, I found out I am a Gap size Small.....?

Also, Haven't you noticed you can now get pants in odd number measurements? Is this a way for a store to make more money? Or to make the customer feel better about themselves knowing they can fit into a 33 instead of a 34 inch jeans. There isn't a way you can alter pants sizes, with the exception of all of these "cuts". Boot cut, Loose cut, Painters cut, Emo cut, etc. In the end, inches is inches when is comes to waist-lines So why can't shirt sizes be the same way?

32 Mississippi

Take a look HERE.

If it's not bad enough to know American store's are changing their clothing sizes to fit larger people, this chart shows the problem is only getting worse. I wonder if we will start to see the sizes "Smedium", "X-Medium" or "Marge" to make the 32% of Mississippians feel a little better about their problem.

Moral of this whole shenanigan, buy what feels right and forget about the sizes! Do you know any stores that are main offenders to the battle of the sizes?

Running Notes

Training is going fine, hoping to get over the 7-8miles barrier sometime within the next week!

TGIF everyone!

Road to Lake Placid is Hot and Mental

If I knew the road to the September 12th Lake Placid Half Marathon would be paved in long, insanely hot days and mental madness, I may have taken a different approach.

I definitely took the road less traveled by, thinking I could easily jump back into a race half that of the Great Wall Marathon. Maybe summer training isn’t my thing, but I’m prepared to make it so as long as I can get over the mental 6-7 mile block. With less than 4 weeks to the race, my mind isn’t allowing me past half the distance of the race. In my only 8 mile attempt thus far I stopped short due to heat. Maybe hitting the gym when the weather isn’t agreeing with me would be the best idea, maybe not. Any tips for getting over the hump? It amazes me that 3 months ago, almost to the day I finished running 26.2 miles and I am here stuck around 7. Maybe I just need to suck it up :) .

One thing I do know is I won’t bow out of the race, regardless of miles logged. I know once I get over that 8 mile hump it will be smooth sailing from then on. Today called for almost mid 90s….again, so despite a horrible night’s sleep the night before I got up and ran 6 this morning. I smell progress! The thing that kept my mind off the mileage was the amount of runners on the streets at 5:45 am. If they are out eating miles for breakfast, why shouldn't I be?

Question for Runners

A quick survey for those runners who live in apartments/dorms. How do you dry your clothes after a run? Let me know in the comments section.

Alumni Anniversary

I just realized writing this blog I graduated one year ago today from Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. To celebrate and inspire, here is a quick before and after.

Yes, as mentioned in a previous post, the American flag pants were worn to a John Kerry rally. I don't have them anymore. I also don't have the 100+ pounds the guy on the left had either. A little Monday Motivation for you.

Have a great day! :)

The President Veto'd my Tuesday Track Workout

I picture it like a scene from the show West Wing.

Chief of Staff: POTUS will be in Portsmouth,NH on Tuesday. Make sure the area is cleared and ready for his arrival.

Assistant: But sir, Big B has a track workout scheduled for Tuesday.

Chief of Staff: Are you saying we should cancel the President of the United States Town Hall Meeting for some kid running around a track

Assistant: No, it's just that I-

Chief of Staff: I said clear the area, POTUS is in town!
/////////

Obama is in Portsmouth today to the high school where my track workouts take place. It was highly unlikely I would be doing the track workout anyway today, since I did a grueling 7.5 miles in the wicked humidity yesterday. But it's not every day you can say the President affected your plans one way or another.

Yesterday consisted of some walk breaks, some zoning out and of course, some heat. Let's be honest, I should've waited until the sun went down to run like the rest of the runners around here, but I didn't. I had set out to do 8 miles, trying to make up for the 10 lost over the weekend. But with the lack of water I cut it short by a mile or so, still a good effort though!

I have considered going to the gym for these hot days but I am getting used to it, and I am hoping the worst is either upon us or behind us in terms of heat, and nothing worse is ahead. In the heat you just have to zone out and concentrate. Don't let your mind get the best of you. Also, HYDRATE!

Just a quick one today, have a good Tuesday!