*

The little asterisk has become a pretty powerful bit of punctuation lately. You see it all the time at the end of a sentence, telling you to look to the end of the page to find more information. Of course, these days it is usually a fine-print disclaimer. Things like, "The FDA has not evaluated this claim" following some proposed health benefit, or "Side effects may include:" followed by a list of things often less appealing than what you are trying to avoid in the first place.

Lately, I have seen sentences followed by an asterisk with no accompanying explanation, fine-print or otherwise. It seems the asterisk is now self-contained and has come to mean, "The proceeding claim is incomplete, misleading, or an outright fabrication. Please disregard, and keep reading at your own risk."

Maybe politicians and "news" outlets should be more upfront by saying "asterisk" once in a while.

Fueling mid-flight

By the time I show up at the start line of the marathon in October, I will have put in almost 400 miles of running. This will require about 40,000 calories to complete. How do you stay properly fueled for this? You look for sales and buy in bulk:

Training update

So I am six weeks into marathon training under the new program. So how is it going you might ask? You might not ask, so I will ask for you.

The new program is much more structured, has a bit higher mileage and definitely more speed work than plans I have done in the past. So far, I have completed all of my running workouts (three a week), and have hit most all the interval paces. I have also made it to the pool once a week, and I am up to about a half a mile a session. The biking has unfortunately been pretty spotty. In the past, I would normally bike on Sundays, but that hasn't worked out very well so far this time around.

It is quite the change of pace (ha!) to have such a detailed plan for my mid-week runs. In some ways, it has made it that much more interesting to head out the door with a specific plan of attack for the day. Particularly on my interval runs each Tuesday, I have to remain pretty focused and present to maintain form and pace. I have mentioned in the past that having a long term goal on the calendar helps me get out the door for a run. These challenging mid-week workouts have raised the interest level a notch, which makes it a little easier to get out of bed early to run before work (but only a little).

At the same time, the increased structure of the mid-week runs has made me almost look forward to the weekend long runs. Here is where I can just run how I feel, without constantly checking to see if I am running at the correct pace. My mind is allowed to wander a bit more and I can look at the scenery more than my watch. It is still a challenge to get the extra miles in, but I seem to be approaching them with a more relaxed mind.

So, how do I feel? A bit faster, a bit fitter, and a bit run down. The weekly interval sessions are getting a bit more manageable, and I have had more success hitting and maintaining my pace as the weeks go by. I have also noticed that my heart rate is averaging about 5 to 15 beats lower on my long runs than it was last year. I assume that the interval work is helping my body to work a little more efficiently, and I am taking that as a sign of progress.

But I am also feeling pretty worn down this week. Working and running in the heat, coupled with my sleep issues has me feeling smoked both physically and mentally. I was planning on getting in a bike ride this afternoon, but I think it would be best if I just take it easy. I think a few extra hours of sleep will do me much more good than a few extra miles on the road.

So overall, I am feeling pretty good about my prep for the marathon. 66 days to go!

Happy Birthday Annabelle

Knocking a screw loose

Sometimes it takes a smack upside the head before you will make a change. Sometimes that smack upside the head is an all too literal one.

I have worn an earring for about 15 years. My girlfriend at the time and I went to the mall the day after Christmas one year, and I left with my ear tagged. Turns out I ended up going to the same mall chain that Harrison Ford went to when he got his earring. Really butches it up, don't you think.

After whatever the healing period was, I replaced the silver stud with a silver hoop. It was a small hoop with a couple darker cross hatches. It was pretty simple, and some people didn't even notice I had one for a couple years. I didn't think too much about it, and would often forget about it myself.

And I never changed it. The same earring for more than 15 years. The only time it would come out was when I was getting X-rays at the dentist. Until last week.

I was at work and we were putting up an aluminum header for a cool, peaked roof cover. I was up on one of the top steps of the ladder, and I guess I shifted my weight the wrong way and suddenly the ladder shot out from underneath me. As I was falling, I managed to catch myself by grabbing one of the lower beams, so I ended up dangling just a couple feet off the ground rather than hitting it hard. But I smacked the left side of my face on the way down. As I was falling, I let go of the header I was holding above my head. It landed on the same lower beam, and that is probably what I hit on the way down.



I didn't notice it until I was home, but when I smacked my ear I knocked the earring out. I looked around the jobsite the following Monday, but I wasn't able to find it. So it was finally time to replace my 15 year old earring. I went down to Old Town and wandered around the shops, but of course most all of the earrings were shiny, dangly ones. I ended up finding some simpler ones at the Five and Dime shop of all places. I bought another hoop and will probably get a simple silver stud for those black tie events I never get invited to.

Since they were only about eight bucks a piece, I got a couple of fun ones. This is the current one.

Quote of the day

"Be who you are and say what you feel,
because those who mind don't matter,
and those who matter don't mind."

~ Dr. Seuss

Weighing in

Weight has been a hot topic in the household lately. My housemates have a bit of a competition going to see who can be the first to lose a certain amount of weight. We have also been watching "Biggest Loser" and "Losing it with Jillian" on Tuesday nights for inspiration. The focus on exercise and eating better has been pretty successful. One of us has fit in a dress that has not been worn in a long time. I'm not saying which of us that is.

I have always been overweight, or "husky" as it was called when I was growing up. There was a brief period (about 9 months or so) when I was "thin", but that was fifteen years ago. I was down below 140 pounds, and I still keep that drivers license in my wallet. The thing that started me on my way to weight loss was a relationship breakup. My stomach was in knots, and food just didn't sound appealing. After some pounds fell away, I decided to start eating a little better.

Matt recently posted a shot of him 20 years ago, and what he looks like these days. Here is my own little version:

This is the picture on that 1995 drivers license still tucked in my wallet:

Me on the 2008 version:

And a picture taken at the end of June this year:

That 2008 photo was hardly my peak (low point?) for my weight. Looking back, I was only about eight pounds heavier than in the 2010 photo. Must be the terrible DMV cameras (or more likely my body fat percentage).

No, I think my highest weight was one Christmas a number of years ago when my wife gave me a digital scale as a present. The scale also measures your body fat percentage, and when a few of us stepped on to be measured, the results were pretty depressing. I don't remember specific numbers, but I was definitely over 190 pounds and 30% body fat.

I dropped a few pounds, but plateaued. Once I started biking, and then running, I was more concerned with what my body could do, than what it looked like. The next round of weight loss didn't happen until the end of 2008. The spark was two-fold this time. We had just started marriage counseling, so once again my stomach was in knots. The other piece of the puzzle was working for UPS for a couple of months, which meant I was running six days a week. I dropped 15 pounds and have been able to keep it off since then.

But I am on another plateau. I am so much more active now than when I was at my 1995 weight, but still 30 pounds heavier. It looks like it was all about what I was eating - diet vs exercise. But I wasn't doing anything all that special back then. The pattern I fell into was generally to have two "good" meals, and one not-so-good meal each day. I was working double/triple shifts at a restaurant at the time, so breakfast would often entail grazing at the salad bar as it was being set up, and dinner would usually be something sensible. Lunch was usually my splurge meal.

I am starting to think about looking into the possibility of making a decision about researching a strategy to create a plan...

Ah, I should just start eating better. Less late night snacking and empty calories. I'm not getting any younger, and I know if I fueled my body better my workouts would be more productive. That, and it is perpetual swimsuit season down here.

Number not found

I'm a numbers guy. I can't remember names, but numbers seem to stick for some reason. But skills and memory are definitely use-it-or-lose-it sorts of things. I used to be pretty good at doing math in my head, but I'm getting slower these days. I used to have everyone's phone number in my head too. Now the only number I can remember for sure is the phone number of the house I grew up in.

With the advent of the cell phone, I rarely dial anyone's number anymore. All I need to do is scroll to their name and hit a button. I've forgotten the numbers of old friends through lack of use, and numbers of people I've met in the past five years I have never had to remember. Once it is punched into the phone, it is "set it and forget it".

Is this a problem? Well, it can be. A friend recently locked her keys (and phone) in her car. She was able to borrow a friend's phone to call around for help. If that happened to me, I would be completely stumped. I'd borrow the phone and then stare blankly at it. Without my phone to get a number, I would have no one to call.

This came across my mind when I was on a very painful run a few months ago. It hurt to walk, and I was seriously contemplating calling for a ride. But of course, even if I could find a phone, who would I call? Even if I called information, most of my friend's numbers would not be listed since they have ditched their land lines. I was stuck walking back.

So I've gone back to paper and ink. I've printed up a phone list to stuff in my wallet to make up for my failing memory. It is printed in 8 point font so I could fit in more numbers. It should work, at least until my eyes start to fail me.

You're welcome

This has been the coolest July in San Diego since 1933. I won't say coldest since the average temperature was around 66 degrees after all. This in spite of the fact that we had that series of days where it was almost 100 degrees only a few miles inland.

Glad I could bring a little taste of summer in Seattle down with me.

King thumb

You could say human evolution started when the first brave ape came down from the trees. But scientists have long said that it was making tools that really set humans apart.

And if tools define our species, then it's our hands we have to thank...

"Everything that made us human was arguably given this big push by using stone tools," Williams says, "and so I'm trying to see what it is about our anatomy that allowed us to be good at it compared to other species that weren't good at it."

~ from NPR story, A Handy Bunch: Tools, Thumbs Helped Us Thrive 

I heard this interesting story yesterday. As the above quote indicates, scientists believe that our ability to make tools helped us excel where other species did not. And of course as everyone knows, our thumbs set us apart.

But of course apes have thumbs as well. In studying how humans succeed and apes fail at chipping flint with stones, it looks like a thumb isn't all you need. Turns out the apes thumb is a bit small, and the strength in their hand is more vertical (which allows them to support their weight hanging from branches). The human thumb is longer, and the palm of our hand has more side-to-side strength, which helps us grip the striking stone better. And oddly enough, the lowly pinky comes in to play.

This all reminded of a group camping trip some years ago. Our friend Brent was convinced it wasn't only our opposable thumb that set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Now, he has a lot of random theories and ideas, most of which are pretty out there (zero-gravity veal anyone). To prove his point, he talked most of the guys and one of the women into duct taping our thumbs down to make them unusable.

We spent a good five hours with our thumbs taped down. From what I recall, managing our zippers was one of the more difficult hurdles. But we managed to prepare our meals including cooking steaks over the campfire. We could feed, if not clothe ourselves. It was a pretty entertaining evening.

At one point, I looked around the campfire and realized that I was the only one left with duct tape around his hands. I'm not sure if that makes me more determined, resourceful, or just more easily duped into goofy experiments. I am sure if a Park Ranger walked up, my friends would have sold me out. "I don't know sir, he does these odd things from time to time." Friggin Brent.

Who's yer buddy?

Programming note:  I was telling a story up in Washington to someone who did not know my friend Sean H down here in California. When I talked about "Sean", he thought I was talking about myself in the third person. When I refer to "Sean" here in the blog, I am talking about my friend Sean H. I am not speaking in the third person. I hate when people do that.


It helps to have a running buddy. Even if they aren't running there with you, they are still part of your support system. While I was training for my second marathon, I was training alongside three other friends who were preparing to run their first. And since this was my first pass through a full marathon training program myself, we were all breaking new ground together.

We ran at different paces, but during the 16 week ramp up we still met every couple of weeks to do our training runs. We weren't necessarily running next to each other, but we were still more or less running together. We'd meet before and after to talk about how training was going, as well as catching up on everything else. When we stood together at the start line of the 2007 San Diego Marathon, we were truly a running group. We ran the first mile together before splitting off to run our own race. It was really a great experience.

Ever since that race, I haven't really gone through a training calendar with anyone. I have certainly joined friends at races, but I haven't had as much of a connection during the build up. I have mostly trained alone, and when we show up together at the start line, there is less of a sense of a shared journey.

This time it is a little different. Sean and I are both training for an October marathon. We are not running the same marathon, but since they are only two weeks apart, our training schedules are roughly aligned.

But we are actually going about it in two different ways. I described my plan in a previous post. Sean's plan was to run every day this month to develop a base, before starting in on higher speed and mileage. His July runs were not necessarily fast each day, but every day he would put in at least three miles. He would ramp things up for a long run each weekend, but July was mostly about making running an unquestionable routine, rather than a chore. It sounds like a great idea, but I think I will wait to try it out when I am not training for something specific.

Now that Sean and I are working together most days, we share our training stories after almost every run. Anytime I am tempted to postpone a training run, I remember that I have to "report" to Sean. It keeps me honest, and in waiting to hear how his training is going, it keeps me interested on another level. It is good to have a running buddy again. And I can't wait to see how our different methods pan out in October.

And of course having a buddy helps in other journeys as well. I have a friend that has been using Weight Watchers for a few months (quite successfully I might add). She has a friend who has been through the program who has been of great help. At the beginning, they were talking on the phone daily, discussing points, meal plans, etc. I think having someone who understood exactly what she was going through helped tremendously to get through the first week or two.

So many of our struggles for improvement end up being all too solitary. It helps to have a buddy. Find one if you can.

Never say die

This was originally my grandmother's, and it now hangs on a wall at my parent's house.

Never say die, say damn.

The mix tape

I am about two-thirds of the way through Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time. The book is a memoir about the author's love of music, the courtship and marriage to his wife Renee, and her all-too-sudden death after five years of marriage. He uses these mix tapes created by he and his wife to place himself at certain times in his life. The mix tapes serve as both a launching pad and a soundtrack to the story.

The author's passion for music has reminded me how much it is missing in my life these days. I listen to much less music since I started listening to podcasts. The podcast list keeps growing, and I follow almost 30 on a regular basis, so it leaves little time for music. The soundtrack of driving, exercise, and odd chores is now filled up with talk instead of music. I love listening to podcasts, but I miss the music.

I dragged all my CDs down to San Diego, two large boxes in all. A few people asked "why?" since I only had so much room in the truck, and music is largely digital now. But I have only loaded a portion of my music onto the computer, and my Nano can only hold some fraction of what I own.

CD sales have been dropping for years. Originally it was a illegal downloads that were cutting into sales. The music industry did its best to fight it, with some success. Now of course there are many legal ways to downloads individual songs (iTunes, Amazon, etc.), but by making it so easy to purchase individual songs, few people are buying the whole album these days.

Like others, the iPod has also pushed me towards listening to individual songs, rather than full albums. And I miss this too. When I do chose music these days, I typically listen to a few playlists I have created, or just hit shuffle and see what comes up. But there is a real appeal to listening to an album. Some albums are structured to rise and fall, each song building on the one before. And there are the hidden jewels buried on side B (when there was a side B), songs you never hear on the radio. And if all you do is buy individual songs, you never have a chance to make those discoveries.

So it is time to turn off the podcasts for a while to make time for music in my life. Less talk, more rock. The author had much more indy taste in music than I did, but there are some albums he mentioned that I have still buried in those boxes I dragged down. Time to dig through those boxes and put the CDs back in the car stereo where they belong.

And like the author, I made a ton of mix tapes when I was younger. I still have them in my storage unit in Seattle, and even just looking them over will take me back to when I made them. Now I kind of wish I had them down here with me. Of course I don't know what I would play them on.

Quote of the day

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."

~ George Bernard Shaw

Random thoughts from the road

You know how the air smells after the first rain in weeks. I love it! - so fresh and clean. I heard recently that the smell is different depending on where you live. When the rain falls, it hits the local soil and plants and releases a smell specific to the location. I was out for a run this morning, and it was drizzling. It may be the first time it has rained during a run down here. A scent was in the air, and I was having a tough time placing it. I finally figured it out. It smelled like Round Up weed killer. Bleh.

On my long run last Saturday, I ran through Ocean Beach. It was pretty warm last week, so I tried to stay relatively close to the ocean to get some onshore breeze. As I passed by Dog Beach and the volleyball courts, I passed a gal heading toward the beach, clad in neoprene, carrying a surf board. Every time I run near the beach or Sunset Cliffs, I see lots of people bobbing in the water, astride a surf board, waiting for the next wave. Not the first time I have thought, "I'm in the wrong sport".