Old news: I ran a marathon

I ran in the P.F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Marathon in Phoenix back on January 13th of this year. It's obviously taken forever for me to post about it here, so I think I've therefore passed the statute of limitations for describing it in emotional, verbose detail. So, just the facts (mostly...):

• I finished it in 3:25:46 - a pace of 7:51 per mile - coming in under my goal of 3:30
• It was hard but rewarding; more of a "checked that box" than life-changing
  
• Training was a pain, but actually not too taxing; more mental torture than physical
  
• My parents were great: they fed me a nice pasta meal the night before the race, and popped up about four separate times on the course to cheer me on; it really does make a difference to see a friendly face once in awhile on the course
• I tweaked my knee clearing the table from the pasta meal and, while it didn't really hamper my run, it messed with my head the night before, and cause lots of pain, issues and doctor visits in the weeks after the race
  
• To minimize hassles in the morning, I stayed in a motel room right near the start line the night before the race. It worked out great, but was a seedy hotel in a seedy part of town. When I asked the motel manager if it was safe there, he said "well, I've been here for about two years and we haven't had any major incidents here yet".
• The weather was perfect and the course was flat and fast
• I stopped at every water station after mile ten
  
• I was pretty delirious the last couple of miles and especially at the end. A volunteer had to come up and ask me if I was okay as I wobbled myself to get my medal
• I'm thoroughly convinced anybody can run a marathon; it's as simple as following a plan

• More pics here
  

I'm a published photographer!

When I was traveling back in 2001, I obviously took lots of pictures, and then just chucked them all in to my Flickr account a few years ago.

Making all of them viewable by anybody paid off: I found out last week that my photo of a castle hostal I stayed in in Toledo, Spain was chosen to be in an online travel guide called Schmap. I guess they found it by doing a search for "Hostal Toledo" in Flickr, which is exactly what I named my picture.

Click on "Hostal Toledo" on the bottom half of the page here, and you can see my pic - including the credit line - at the top right.

How cool is that? Now that I look at the picture, I have to admit that it is pretty good. However, I also have to admit that this was purely by accident; I'm pretty sure I took the pic as an afterthought as I walked away from the hostal after checking out of it. Lest you think I am just being humble, I submit bad photo exhibit one also taken in Spain.

But, let's look at my famous piece one more time:

The Nike Human Race

I ran in the Los Angeles version of The Human Race this past Sunday evening. My goal was to finish the 10K race in under 42 minutes and I just did it with a time of 41:58, a 6:43 per mile pace.


It was great to run one of these at night and a great race overall: extremely well organized, nice route and a great atmosphere after the race - including a beer tent. The main highlight after was a concert by Kanye West and Common. Which brings me to my story:

Common came on first and played about three or four songs. I had never heard anything by him - and indeed had never even seen a picture of him - but he sounded great, he was a good performer and the mostly college-aged crowd was totally in to it. He was then joined by another rapper, and they performed about four more songs, with the new guy pretty much taking it over and Common just backing him up. The new guy then left and said "thanks Kanye" as he did.

Uh oh...

I'm a dumb ass: who I thought was Common was actually Kanye, and the second rapper who came on was actually Common. In my defense, Kayne was wearing big sunglasses that hid lots of his face, and he was wearing a very unrapper-like khaki colored coat.


Please note that they look nothing alike. So despite running a good race, I left it feeling humbled and distinctly unhip.

More pictures