Good Hair Day

Hey America! How are you? You look good.

Rest assured, I look good too. Very good. Amazingly good. I'm having a very good hair day, that's why. It's a shame that not everybody gets to have a hair day like the hair day I'm having. If they did, there would surely be no wars, no hatred. And like all great things, my hair is being misinterpreted. Instead of inspiring people, even my very own friends and coworkers are growing tired of my enthusiasm about my very very good hair day. I'd say this was the second best hair day I've ever had.

I've been doing well America, despite the lack of blogging. I'm quite busy. Ever since my boss left town and got a job in the real world, I've come to realize that I have more advisors than ever. As of the last count, I have four professors who have a legitimate claim to being able to tell me what to do. I'd say probably two of the four are happy at any given moment.

And I'm preparing for a trip next week. For 6 days, I'll be in sunny Mallorca, in the Spanish Islands, living it up, running down the nude beaches, enjoying my free food and vitamins, hob-nobbing with celebrity computational neuroscientists from around the globe. All the big names in mathematical biology will be there.

I've been running well, and I'm proud to say I've run every mile prescribed to me in the Hansons' Marathon Training Program that I introduced to you here. Maybe not always on the day prescribed, but soon thereafter, and every lazy morning was rectified by an evening run, sometimes late at night.

I've followed the old four-stage pattern that I encountered again and again during my six month running streak last year. First, when increasing mileage, everything goes well, and enthusiasm carries me through one week easily. The second week hurts as the increased workload begins to take it's toll. The third week is better, and the fourth week feels too easy. That's where I am now, feeling fit enough for the schedule, at least for this week. Next week, things take quite a jump in mileage and speedwork. I'm a little nervous about it all, but I expect the enthusiasm of the mileage bump, along with all the running on the nude beaches to carry me through to the second week at least.

Anyways, I'm incubating my cells in some calcium indicator, so I have to go now.

Comb your hair.
Keith.

2:04:26

Haile Gebrselassie breaks marathon world record in Berlin.
Read the full story here.

I had a feeling he would do it. He's so determined. He's determined to win the gold medal in the marathon too.

Rock on like Haile!

Keith.

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Registration.

i'm interrupting my workday to remind you that if you haven't registered for the marathon, you should probably do it this weekend or even today. It's at 93% capacity already!

I registered for the full yesterday.

Keith out.

building base

hey bloggers, how are you? you look good.

I was scheduled for 3 miles Saturday and 4 miles Sunday and I ran zero miles both days. It was Claudia's birthday so we took an impromptu trip to San Antonio and San Marcos. We spent a couple days paddling on the San Marcos river and eating fine foods on the San Antonio Riverwalk. Paloma made me an excellent New York Strip steak. Some mariachi played Malagueña Salerosa for us the next day at Michelino's. It was a very nice weekend.

But now I have some catching up to do on my schedule. Some people say you shouldn't try to catch up but should just pick up where the schedule is, but I think I'll try to catch up anyway. I ran the four miler on my off day yesterday (Monday) and felt okay. I think it's getting cooler. If I feel okay I'll pick up the other three lost miles on tomorrow's off day.

Anywho, keep in touch.
Keith.

procrastinators, it's time!

Dear bears, and chickens, and things,

Is Houston! Is Marathon! Is Time!

If you were procrastinating like me, I think it's safe to say that your free time is up. If you were thinking you were going to run in the Houston Marathon, or Half Marathon this year, it's now four months away and the hobbyjogging needs to get focused into something more disciplined.

I had this revelation about a week ago and started planning and looking at some schedules (and running more often of course) and it seems the marathon bug has made a complete recovery. One clue to that is that I'm reading about plans and blogging about running right now, and it's like 1AM in the morning.

I ran four times this week, which is the most for a couple months, and the cobwebs are becoming loosened and things are starting to float along like its supposed to. I've decided to try a new type of training plan, from the Hanson running group in Michigan. You can find it on their site : http://hansons-running.com/ or you can just look below:



As you can see, there's a lack of long long runs, with nothing over 16 miles, but looking at it, it doesn't seem like that makes it an easy plan. The Hanson guys say that physiologically there's nothing magical about the 20 miler, and you can improve the same way with intelligent strength and tempo training. We'll see. It's quite different than the approach I took last year, which was to run more and more, lots of easy miles, running everyday, if you recall, for over 6 months. At the end, I ran what I thought to be a very nice 4:17 marathon. So I plan a lot more 'quality' work this time. But this schedule also gets up to about 50 miles a week, so while there's no 20 miler, there's still a lot of miles, so it's not a clean quality v. quantity experiment.

But I'm excited about it, and it's nice to have that back.

Keith out.

badumpa da da, dadumpa da da da da

Hey America, how are you? You look good.

I haven't been updating that much, b/c I've been quite busy. I don't even have time to write out the "b/c" I have to abbreviate it, that's how busy I am.

I've been moving, or I've moved actually, everything is complete, there remains only a few stray boxes of miscellaneous junk that has no place that needs to be recategorized. The only idea I have for that so far is to pile it all in the corner and put a blanket over it. So now I live in the Medical Center, in the heart of Condoland. I'll post some pictures soon.

This weekend, Claudia and I caught Pulp Fiction at the midnight movie on Friday, so that was cool and the Theater District Open House was yesterday and that was very nice too. We saw the symphony and a scene from the Marriage of Figaro and some Colombian dancers and got some cookies and some cheescake from Artista, all for free, so that was cool. Oh yeah, and we saw the projection booth at the Angelika and the guy gave us all a foot or so of actual film from the Harry Porter movie. And I asked the guy if it was still a problem for the film to catch fire and he seemed to not know what I was talking about, so I guess he didn't see Cinema Paradiso.

I've been running a little. Not as much as someone who's supposed to be marathon training, but once in a while there is enough time and energy for a run. The longest was about 6 miles around the new place. There is some good running in the new area, so that's nice.

The only problem with the moving is how much money gets spent without really paying much attention to it. And with a frightful look at my bank account I decided that I would challenge myself this week to spend as little as possible. I had a twenty dollar bill at the time, so I decided to spend no more than that 20$ bill until payday on Friday. Claudia is taking the same challenge. Somehow though, we decided yesterday that 7$ on a giant burrito from Chipotle was a good idea, so it was almost half gone in the first day. It was worth it though, I loves me my giant burritos. With the burrito and some necessities from the grocery store I've got 8.62 + 1.71 that Claudia owes me so thats... $10.33 remaining. There's a 6$ monday special at the pizza place around the corner, and Tuesday is chicken day, with .89$ chicken at Popeye's, so if I split those with Claudita I can get by for two days on about 5$ and then I'll have to come up with something else for the next three days.

more to come...
Keith.

Tank # 2

Hi America,

Here's what happened with the frogs, and how they're all gone now. I think they are tree frogs, gray tree frogs, I think, which makes them quite a handful. They can climb straight up the sides of things. This is one we named sticky. He is something of a pioneer.

They are also capable of climbing straight up the sides of the glass fish tank.

So we prepared a second tank, designed for animals which are primarily terrestrial. Here you can see the flowerpot, with an assortment of plants, a food dish, and a bridge made of skeleton bones.

We tried feeding them bloodworms, which one website says they like, but I don't think they ever ate any of them.

But they had a nice home, I think, with plenty of things to climb on.

And some nice props for some exciting roleplaying games to invent. This could be the bridge to hell for example.

We borrowed some drosophila melanogaster from one of the labs to see if our babies would be interested in them.

They were interested. Very interested.

There is some video footage of this particular encounter. Check it out.

But there were too many frogs. Somehow, we started with 59 tadpoles, which we counted very carefully when switching tanks the first time, but then switching the grown frogs from the tadpole tank to the frog tank, there were 63! We always planned to set most of them free, so we did. We took all but four with their flowerpot to the Burke-Crenshaw park, by my house.

I think they're probably doing okay, there seemed to be tons of life around that spot. Hopefully they're doing some major damage to the fireant population that I encountered while I was there.

Anyways, Rock on.
Keith.

I've never been so proud.

We got them some drosophila from one of the labs at UH. This is their first real meal.





Rock on!
Keith.

Frogs!

Our tadpoles have been busy. Growing legs, then arms, then losing their tail and all. Here's what they looked like a couple weeks ago.


Some of them were starting to grow their back legs.


Their transition to froghood seems to happen by shrinking away the extra stuff, rather than growing legs and arms. Here's one that is in the awkward phase between poledom and frogdom.


When they reach this stage, with nicely shaped arms and legs, there tail gets absorbed and they become little frogs. It takes less than a day from this point. They're also very awkward looking at this stage. Especially when they try to swim. Their arms and legs are flailing around and their shrinking tail is getting less and less effective.


At some point, they all seem to come to the conclusion that it would be easier if they just get out of the water.


They seem to rest for a day and do nothing but recover. Then they are able to swim around like frogs, kicking their powerful backlegs like a frog is supposed to. And they hop of course.


Apparently, they also realize that not only can they walk and hop, but they can climb the glass wall of the aquarium. We had to seperate them into a tadpole tank and a frog tank that is covered on the top. They're getting to the point where we are trying to figure out where to leave them. Conventional wisdom says to bring them back to the pond they came from, but the tire-track puddle doesn't seem to be a very good option, especially because somebody else drove through it again the other day.

Anyways, Rock on.
Keith.

Last weekend.

Last weekend, Claudia and I decided to tie the bikes on to the back of the car and head down to G-town for a nice little tour of the seawall. We really intended to work out that day, I swear. Instead, we left the bikes tied to the car and headed to Schlitterbahn instead. The weather was beautiful and cooler than it's supposed to be in July so it seemed pretty fortuitous to be on the way to Galveston already.

After 3:00PM it's only 23$ and there's plenty of time to get completely tired of the waterslides so it's not a bad deal. They have many types of slides of all possible speeds. These are two of the slower ones, where you go down in a bigger boat-thing that fits four people.



Instead of walking around all day from slide to slide, they have a bayou system that floats you around everywhere so there's very little walking to tire you out.



They have something called boogiebahn, where you get on a boogieboard and try to stay in the half-pipe thing where they have tons of water streaming by. It's tough to try to stay on and to try to stay in the wave without getting shot back over the back end. It's fun though. I stayed on a little while and then got a little too close to the side and then I have no idea what happened but I was off the side and the boogie board was back up on the starting ramp. (That picture's just some random kid.)



Lots of fun. Here's some more pics.




It was a fun day and and the bicycles took a nice hundred mile drive for no reason.

Keith.

Tadpoles!

There's a puddle of water, made by somebody driving off the sidewalk on the university campus, and there's a frog that thinks that's a good place for her eggs. We saw a thousand or so tadpoles there a couple months ago and decided to raise them - surely we could provide a better home than a dirty slimey puddle. So we collected about 5 or 6 and brought them home. If you ever try this, make sure you get your tap water and let it sit for a couple days first, so that all the dissolved chlorine comes out because our first crack at tadpole raising was a complete failure and they all died by the next morning.

We were right about one thing though, the roadside puddle isn't much better. A couple days later it rained and the puddle overflowed and most of the other tadpoles got stuck out on the sidewalk when the water level dropped. A few days after that, the rest of them were dead for no obvious reason.

But then with the rains a couple weeks ago, there came more tadpoles to the same roadside puddle, so we decided to try again, being much better read about tadpoles and how to keep them alive. Here's a reference, if you're ever inclined to try it.

Here's some pics. They're horribly cute, and horribly entertaining. I can watch them for hours. There is some anxiety of course, since the first batch all died, and sometimes they do stupid things like get themselves trapped in the rocks, and when I spend twenty minutes trying to gently-gently move rocks to get him out and he goes right back in there 30 seconds after he's freed. Otherwise they're adorable.



I know!



Some of them are starting to get their back legs. There's one that's more advanced than the others, but not by much. His name is Leggie because he has legs.



If you stick your finger in the water they will cling to you and start nibbling.



And since their tank is just a wee bit cramped, they're about to get introduced to their brand new pimped out crib. I know! Just as soon as the chlorine dissipates and the plants bump up the oxygen level.



Rock on my chickieweemonkies!
Keith.

There's a movie called Once playing at the Landmark in River Oaks. It's very good. The music is great.

busy busy busy

Hey Bloggers,

I know I haven't posted too much recently, but I have been quite busy. Here's a photo-recap of some of the things I've been up to. First of all, I got a nice digital camera, which makes uploading photos easy, so there should be more pictures in the future.

My Mom came to town, and Claudia and I hung out with her for a few days. Here we are by that thing on Memorial. The dog belonged to the guy who took the picture.
We saw the bats emerge from the Waugh street bridge, and we also went to the downtown aquarium.
This is some kind of a crazy salamander. It has gills and legs at the same time.
There were little shrimp that will swim up to your hand and clean your fingers if you don't freak out like I did.
A couple weeks later, Claudia and I went to the zoo on free-day. It wasn't that crowded because it was pouring rain most of the time. This is a lion.
I forget what this was but somebody shaved it.
We also took some time to play a round of golf with some comically large golf clubs.

Armand Bayou Nature Center has tons of animals, 95% of which are gigantic spiders.
I dog-sat for my boss. A delightful little whippet and a sizeable greyhound. They look so much like my beloved five-dog and their mannerisms are identical. It was nice.
I had a birthday. I'm 31 years old now. I celebrated at Churrascos. I had the salmon, Claudi had the churrasco. Then cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory.
I made some flautas that I'm kindof proud of. It was Emeril's recipe and it took quite a lot of work. But they were very good. Lunch today will be the last of the leftovers. It's a little sad to see them go.

But that's not everything. There are 45-50 new additions to the family. Stay tuned for some pics.

Rock on.
Keith.

Happy Birthday Freedom and Democracy.

Two hundred and thirty-one years ago, our forefathers along with Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, Henry Ford, and George Washington had an idea. It was a simple idea, that people should be able to decide who their leaders are and they should also be able to be different if they wanted to be different.

Today we can celebrate the birth of freedom. the birth of democracy. and the birth of the modern world.

Run an extra mile if you love freedom!

Rock on America!
Keith.

Four Honeybees!

Okay, judging by the responses, I take it most people would not watch the movie about the alternate universe filled with really boring things and people. How about a movie thats sort of a documentary about a bunch of people like you and me who get together and stage an alien invasion hoax and its a documentary which means we really do stage the hoax and all the people think its real and then the movie comes out to tell them how they're all idiots. Would you watch that one?

Anywho, did I run since Saturday? I don't think so. I've been quite busy looking for a place to live near the Medical Center. I live way out in Pasadena now because it is a relatively cheap place to live, especially since I owned a 90 lb dog and to rent a place that accepts such a large animal near the med center is very expensive. As you may know, last year, my poor babyboy passed away, so now it's back to the med center, where I can probably save a little money on gas and whatnots when all is said and done.

Also, I volunteered to be a guinea pig in a bird flu study. So that should be fun. Fun spending my four hundred bucks anyway! All I have to do is, get injected by an experimental vaccine, which may or may not give me the birdflu, write down my thoughts and feelings for a couple weeks, then go back for some blood drawings, and then I think another vaccine, and then some more free form writing of my emotions, and then some more blood drawings and then a five month follow-up. And they give me four huneybees.

Hmm.. What else would I do for four hunnneybees?

Make me an offer.

Keith.

Would you watch this movie?

Hi bloggers,

Hypothetically speaking, if I wrote a screenplay about a physics student who figured out how to open a portal to an alternate reality, and then when he goes there, it turns out that everything there is really really boring, and then he goes back and appreciates his own life or something, but then when the people there find out that our reality is much more exciting then they go crazy and chase him around a lot and try to steal the antimatter generator and it turns really exciting, and then maybe they realize that there's too much excitement already and they stop and then everythings okay, anyway, would you watch it?

---

Anyway, how is everything with you? I see from your blogs that things are pretty exciting. Several of you are going to run the NYCM. Some of you are living it up in Japan. All pretty exciting stuff. Mine too. A few weeks ago, my advisor figured out that science in academics sucks and decided to live like the jet-set in sunny California. So I kindof started a new job. I get to try to finish up my PhD at a school in the Med Center, while still technically a student at UH. The good part is that the equipment I'll be using is practically the greatest microscope ever created. Furthermore, students in the lab I'm in actually graduate. Sometimes it seems that nobody at UH actually graduates.

What else, what else... Still running, I guess it's been a while since the last update. It has been difficult. Motivation is somewhat low, and energy is on the floor. I ran Monday and Tuesday this week, and 6 miles this morning. So, back to the old slumpbusting routine - short mileage, running everyday, breathing the fresh air, etc. Motivation follows action, not the other way around.

Okay, I'll update more tomorrow.
Sleepy time.
Keith.

Are you an "old school" runner?

Hey bloggers.

My buddy J-money linked to this article in the New York Times about Modern Day Marathoners. Now, people run with less mileage, sometimes as little as possible. Many people opt for the "marathon survival plan" with one 16 miler, one 18 miler, and one 21 miler, with some junk miles here and there. And sometimes they voluntarily take walking breaks early in the race, before they have walking breaks thrust upon them.

I think maybe I'm a little old school on these issues. I don't like walk-breaks, and the goal for me is to be fit enough to run the whole way. But that seems to be the double standard: I'm not allowed to walk, but if you want to walk during the marathon, or even walk the whole way, I still think you're doing a great thing. What a hypocrite I am!

I even think it's okay for me to run if I'm a little bit injured. Minor injuries seem to work themselves out with a little bit of running. But for other people, I find myself advising against it, citing my 6 marathons of experience. :)

But then again, maybe I'm somewhere in the middle of the old school runner and the modern marathoner. A lot of people who think of themselves as an "old school runner" think that the people who take the walk breaks shouldn't even be out there, and should just run 5Ks or a distance that they're in shape for. Many of those "old school" runners rub me the wrong way. Those folks that write us slow people off as lazy and weak are out there too, calling themselves "old school." They don't bother me too much, they're just one of my obstacles.

Anyway bloggers, like it says in the song,

If you want to be me, be me
If you want to be you, be you
There's a million things to do
yeah you know that there are

And if you want to live high, live high
And if you want to live low, live low
'Cause there's a million ways to go
You know that there are

Rock on blogosphere!
Love, Keith.

3rd place at the CLFC prediction run

I ran the CLFC prediction run this morning and I wanted to win it sooo bad. My fastest times are always more predictable than an average time, so I picked 51:00, which corresponds to 8:30 m/m. And most of the time on my standard training runs, I don't even wear my watch, so who knows how fast I'm going. At the end, I finished at 50:37.

I started out with the rabbits, running with Jason and Theresa and Kevin and Coach Peter. When I'm racing and they're just training, is probably the only time I'll be running with those peeps. Also, I overheard that Peter also predicted 51 minutes, and he trains a lot more than me, so I figured he'd know his pace pretty well.

Each of us run those trails frequently so we know where the mile splits are, and Jason called out what he though our pace was, and he was being so accurate, saying 7:59 and 7:55, so I thought he must be right. On the other hand, Peter said later that he wasn't sure if he was joking or not. The group broke up at Pine Gully Park since nobody really knew the exact route to take and everybody wanted to go a different direction. I stayed with Peter since he was running the route which I always counted as the 6 mile route.

I think I ran a positive split, and it felt like I was fading in mile 4 and 5. Peter dropped back to offer encouragement to somebody and caught up to me with about a mile left. Coming into the end, I felt like we were a little on the slow side of 51:00 so I tried my best to pass Peter so I'd be slightly closer to 51:00 than he was. He knew I was racing him since he didn't let me go. I think he had a lot left in the tank. In the end, we were a little fast and since he was faster, I was closer to 51:00 and got third place! Whoo hoo!

With no visible timing methods, Jim and Hung ran within 13 seconds of their prediction time, and all three of us got a 25$ giftcard to the Runner's Link.

Keith.

Quigley Down Under!

Hi America! Long time no see, how come you never call?

Well, I didn't do the Astro's Race afterall. I heard the alarm but some part of me just wanted to listen to the pretty music and not wake up. I didn't get much sleep since I was at the midnight movie the night before. Initially the plan was to see the midnight showing of "Shaun of the Dead" and then hang out at a coffee shop or an all night restaurant and burn the candle at both ends and run the Astros Race and then crash for 10 hours. But at some point, I think around 3:00 AM, we decided that that was stupid. But Shaun of the Dead is great, you should see it.

And there seems to be several good movies at the midnight show coming up at the Landmark River Oaks. Like Evil Dead 2, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and A Clockwork Orange. And it seems their showing of Rocky Horror comes with a live cast to perform everything in synchrony. Might be interesting anyway. Also, rest assured that the high school counter culture is alive and well, they congregate at the midnight movie. There is definitely a specific phenotype of people there, all wierd in a rather similar way. :) Except one girl behind us, who when the guy was talking to the crowd before the show and asked everyone "what movies would you like to see at the midnight show?" she kept yelling "Quigley Down Under!" "Quigley Down Under!" and I was all, "Isn't that that movie with Tom Selleck in Australia?" Anyway, it seemed like a strange movie for a cult following. I haven't seen it though.

What else... what else... I also didn't run this weekend. Not so much from laziness, but from business. I have run this week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I'd like to start another streak. I think I will...

The CLFC prediction run is this weekend. 6 miles, I predict to run them in 51:00. That's faster than a typical training run for me, but I think I can predict a faster run better than some kind of average steady pace run.

And btw, blogosphere, I pulled some strings for you. Because of me, you and your children are welcome at the Kids' run. From the club website it might look like that invite is for every child in the world, but be assured, between the lines, it is specifically addressed to YOU!

Anywho, gotta run. Literally, since I already mentioned that I ran on Thursday, I have to make sure that's not a lie.

Keith.

Crock Pot!

Hi America, How are you? You look good.

How has the running been? It's been okay for me. I ran 9 on Saturday, and I was actually quite tired. And 4 miles more on Wednesday. I guess that's not a whole lot of running though. This must be a pretty disappointing blog. :( You must hate me. :(

I might be running the Astro's Race this weekend. I'm not sure how I'll get my long run in then, but anyways, it should be fun. I guess I'll do it on Sunday.

My mind is wandering a little. I must be hungry. And you know, right now, at my house, my crock pot is preparing my food for me. I think that's the greatest thing ever. Not only is it delicious, but it's ready the second I get home. The only problem is the rate I drive is increased, and my mind wanders a bit throughout the day. Oh, crock pot, how I love you. And every once in a while, while I'm eating the delicious crock pot stuff, there's a chunk of undissolved bouillon cube and "Aaaiieieeeeieeey!" and I cry a little. I can't decide if I love undissolved bouillon or hate it.

Keith.

where's my umbrella?

Tuesday brought me back to the little indoor track at school for 14 laps. I've been running the last 1.5 laps or so without my shoes. I'm under the impression that it's good for my form, and also for strengthening my feets. It's gotten easier than it was at first, except for the blisters, I still get blisters. But the running is easier, I think I'll increase to two laps now. Eventually, maybe I'll run the last mile withouts me choos.

This morning I was on the Kemah Bridge, running with some peeps from the club. Bravo-Zulu to Ed and Peter and David and Terry and her friend and the other woman who may or may not be Irma, and also to me. I've got to set the alarm clock for 4:00 to get out there by 5 and get done by 6 to be at work on time, and I've made it there 3 out of the last 4 weeks. Good for me.

I'll probably have some time to hit the pool this evening. I swam on Sunday, or was it Monday? Did I blog that? If I didn't blog it, did it really happen?

Anyways, gotta work now.
Keith out.

Everybody's cooler than me.

There are cool people everywhere. Everybody cooler than me. Go to the gym, the ultracool are there. At the rock wall, they're even cooler. At the bike shop, cooler than cool. Name one person that's not cooler than me.

Claudia and I were ice skating last night, and the cool people were there, seeing how fast they can go, weaving in and out of the beginners, freaking us out. We had dinner at the Grand Lux Cafe, and the ice cold peeps were there too. Everybody except our waiter, he was funny, he kept apologizing for the food, which was great. He warned us beforehand that the petite filet really was petite, and that my burger was going to have mushrooms, which I knew from reading the menu. And then he apologized that the molten chocolate cake wasn't as molten as it usually is. Everything seemed excellent to me, I wouldn't have guessed that it was all crap.

This morning I got up early to run, hoping to reach 10 miles. It's been a few weeks since I've run that long, and the mental barriers have returned already. But apparently I'm fit enough for a ten miler, since I didn't have much trouble. The only problem was the giant burger with the mushrooms from the night before, which made me keep my pace easy, or I'd start feeling sick.

Afterwards, we took our bikes into Houston and parked by Shepard and Memorial. We rode down Buffalo Bayou, and parts of it were very muddy. We passed another rider that warned us about some mud up ahead which he had obviously fallen into. And apparently Claudia doesn't have any fear of mud, so we went right through it. We rode our mud covered bikes to Jones Hall and bought tickets for Joshua Bell's performance tonight.

On the way back we rode along Allen Parkway and saw all the cool peeps with their cool artcars in the Artcar parade. It was a cool day.

Anyways, be cool America.
Keith.

Go ahead.

Okay, now that I got the go-ahead from Coach Bill, I can start training, and also return to blogging. That's right, I was waiting for the go-ahead to post again. So don't complain about the lack of updates because it's your fault!

Hmmm, now I'm wondering if I should run the bridge tomorrow morning? What do you all think? Should I go?

Keith.

Update: I ran the bridge.

Update: Now, I'm trying to see how long I can hold my breath.

Update: I'm getting dizzy.

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Thinking out loud...

The San Antonio Marathon is November 11 this year.
That's 193 days, or about 6.5 months from now.
My goal is to break 4:00 (9:10 m/m), in that race or in Dallas in December.
My PR is 4:17 (9:49 m/m), so 4:00 is sufficiently ambitious.
The McMillan Calculator says I can run a 3:51 (based on a 1:49 half marathon). Even Galloway's Calculator says 3:53.

My mileage is around 25 per week right now, which isn't that much, but I think okay for the offseason. I'll be designing the training plan soon and I'll post it here. I'm thinking it will probably have two key runs in the week, and lots of junk miles because I loves me the junk. I'll have one long run, and the other alternating between a tempo run one week and a medium long marathon pace run the next. I've never really done any tempo runs or speedwork of any kind other than the bridge, so that should be interesting. I think I'll have three 20+ milers and 6-8 weeks over 50 mpw.

How does that sound? Too ambitious? Training plan not difficult enough?

Keith.

Weekend workout wrap-up

Early Friday evening, Claudia and I headed to the pool, but forgot that the gym closes at 8:00 on Fridays and the pool closes 30 minutes before that. That only left us with 10 minutes to swim so we reconsidered and just ran a bit. I ran 2 easy miles and then 1.5 laps in my barefeet.

Saturday morning I got up and headed out to the park to run with the club. 3 miles early by myself and 5 miles with the group. GPS watch says it was 9:37 pace average.

Saturday afternoon, we made it back to the gym to get in our swim. It seems like I'm improving already. I started out as planned with 4 laps, leaving every ninety seconds and then switched to 4 laps leaving every 60 seconds. After a couple laps, I confused myself with trying to count the intervals between laps instead of the laps, because that's what really counts, since four laps with 60 second starts really only stresses my cardiovascular system 3 times (or maybe it is 4, I dunno... No wait, I'm right. I should count the intervals because the first lap isn't any more difficult than those before), but anyway, I started losing track of how many I had done. I was feeling good so I made sure I did more than 4, I think 6 or 7. Then I returned to several laps with 90 second starts. I think there were 16 laps total.

Sunday, we tested Claudia's new bicycle and rode down to Burke-Crenshaw Park and around on the dirt roads behind the park a little. It was about 5 miles or so.

Thursday morning on the bridge

Believe it or not, I actually got myself out of bed at 4:00 this morning to go run the Kemah bridge. Everybody likes to get done early so they can go to work, so we start at 5 and try to get done by 6:00. There was about 7 or 8 people there Thursday morning.

I ran the warmup loop around the parking lot and two laps on the bridge and then another lap around the parking lot to cool down. I didn't find it all that difficult, but I'm still going to have to get in better shape if I'm going to answer my the Kemah Bridge Challenge, and run 10 laps without stopping.

Keith.

Running, Swimming, Ditching

Since my last post...

I ran 4 or 5 miles on Thursday, I think. Or did I? I know I went to the gym on Friday to run and swim but then they had a swim meet so we couldn't swim, but the leisure pool was open and only for a half hour longer so we did that first and swam a little but mostly played basketball in the pool and went down the slide a couple times, but that was Friday, so maybe I don't remember what I did on Thursday, but maybe I ran on Wednesday then.

But I'm sure I ran 5 miles on Saturday morning with my beloved club, and then 6 miles on Sunday morning with Broadway Joe and his beloved club. We ran down in Texas City from Anchor Park and it was very nice. They have some nice trails and a nice 5K loop and a nice long levee to run on. It seems our clubs might try a new level of cooperation, offering both club's members a service which is greater than the sum of the parts. (You know how it is, since we're both competing with a certain gargantuan for-profit running club, that looks like a non-profit company, and even has coaches and support crew that volunteer their time as if it were a non-profit, but isn't non-profit at all.)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, tuesday night I ran 5K in a mess of loops around the indoor track at school, and then 12 trips across the pool. The pool is always an experience. I think it went better than last time, and I tried to follow some kind of a pattern so I could track my improvement. The first time I just swam until I was exhausted and rested until I could swim again. This time I started out with one trip across the pool, which was taking around 27-30 seconds, and then resting until the end of the minute, and then leaving again. After 4 trips it was too much, so I changed it to 90 second starts, which I could maintain for the rest of the workout. Next time I think I'll start with the 90 second starts and switch to 60 seconds for the middle laps.

Anyway, I'm at work so I can't blog too long. But I have to tell you, I just got back from a Podcasting Summit, that I really only signed up for to get the free lunch. But anyway, I'm sitting there with my friend Claudia and my other friend Yong, and we finished our food and we're sitting, planning our exit, thinking one goes this way and the other that way and so forth and so on, but there really was no good way to do it. Any way to go would be mildly awkward on some level, since they had people standing by the doors, probably for just that reason. Eventually though, Claudia and I just bit the bullet and got up and walked straight out, and we totally ditched Yong. He looked at us with such shock when we got up. The keynote speaker was talking at the time and he had made the rounds and chatted with us a little before the start and we all agreed that he had figured us out and were just there for the lunch. Anyway it was funny. I think Yong is still there. I feel a little bad about it.

Keith.

Where do all my pens go? I buy them all the time!

Update:

Friday, dinner and drinks with JD and Jaclyn and Broadway Joe. It was a lot of fun, and incidentally, I am not very good at drinking. I was half drunk after only half a beer.

Saturday, 4 miles long run with the club on Saturday morning.

Sunday, 3.1 miles consisting of 14 laps around the little track at school.

Also Sunday, 300 meters in the pool. Is that good or am I out of shape for swimming? What is it like for normal people when they first start swimming? I'd swim 25m across the pool and have to wait at the other end for several minutes before crossing back. A couple times I tried to go back right away and I couldn't make it and had to stop and doggiepaddle it back in shame.

I wish I had more time for swimming and other sports as well. Like ping-pong and bowling and pool and skating and more running too.

I'm very excited about going to the Cirque du Soleil on Thursday night. And next week we'll go see Itzhak Perlman with the Houston Symphony. I have to admit, I'm budgeting very well this month. Those two things aren't cheap, and I had to pay 700$ for the rediculous UH fee bill this month also. But I've been ordering from the value menu and packing a lunch every now and then too. How very mature of me! WTG Keith!

Keith.

Mobilize the Geeks : Spirit of the Marathon

Hi Bloggers,



Christy's right. We should mobilize and get a special screening of Spirit of the Marathon here in Houston. As she mentioned here on her blog, you can send an email to info@marathonmovie.com and tell them to come to Houston for their special screening. Whoever they hear from the most wins. Email your club members, bloggers seem to have representatives from all of them.

Stupid New Yorkers with their Biggest Marathon in the World probably think it should be there and probably assume it and wont even send any emails, they'll just assume it! They're so self-centered! New Yorkers. And LA? Please. Those people are too cool to care about anything. They show up at the Lakers games in the third quarter and talk on their cellphones the whole time. And Chicago! Well, they already get the official screening, we're competing for a second special screening, so Chicago doesn't count. That leaves us as the fourth biggest city in the world, so we should get it. And we've got the spirit of the marathon bleeding from our pores. That should help.

Keith.

Congrats JD!

While I was rolling over, hitting the snooze and pulling the covers back up over my head, Das Mixture's own JD was finishing up 10 laps on the Kemah bridge. Congrat's JD! I'm sorry I wasn't out there to meet you, but the cold rain and my stuffy head and fever said "no." We should arrange some way to deliver your award. I can't promise it's going to be worth all that effort, but I can promise this, it will be the most beantastic medal you have.



Rock on like JD. (and JC - haven't forgotten you buddy!)
Keith.

I am not happy today.

I say that and giggle because it reminds me of a couple times when I was at the Galleria Skating Rink and there was a middle aged asian man training a bunch of little tiny asian girls, not more than 10 years old, and they were all skating around, 100 times better than me, and he just kept yelling at them, "Faster!," "Bend your knees," "Faster!" and one time, as one little girl looked at him sheepishly, he turned and said mournfully, "I am not happy today."

In general, I am not happy today because I'm still feeling miserable from the cold that hit me on Wednesday night. And my long run is scheduled for tomorrow, and it's supposed to be cold and rainy. Cold and rainy is not what I want to hear at this moment. Otherwise things are going great. I study biological science. I love my classes. I've got a crazy teacher, he wears dark glasses.

If I still feel bad tomorrow morning, I'll postpone the long run until Sunday. Actually, lets just plan to do it on Sunday and make sure I'm recovered. That's what Sundays are for, making up for lost miles. Sundays are for forgiveness. I'll run 10 on Sunday and I'll dedicate those miles to Jesus! Thanks Jesus for all the forgiveness and everything else. Big props to the Big Man! Whoo hoo! Rock on!

Keith.

14 laps around the 360m track.

14 laps Wednesday evening on the indoor track at school. I think it's about 5K.

But I was feeling a little under the weather, and now after the run, I'm feeling a lot under the weather. I'm feeling cold even though it's not cold, and everything is louder and brighter than it should be. On the other hand, I am wearing JD's medal for when he answers the Kemah Bridge Challenge, which is helping. Anyway, I've been sleeping a lot, but I'm ready for some more sleep, so see you later.

Keith.

Still doing my runner impression

7 miles through the neighborhood this morning. That's more weekday miles than I've had in a long time. Mmm mmm good.

I plan to get back to something like 30-35 mpw for a month or so, then build, then add some tempo runs and marathon pace running, and put all my eggs in the basket of some lucky November/December marathon and see if I can't break 4:00. Hows about 2 7milers, 2 3milers, and a 10-13miler? How does that sound? Good? For the off-season?

One of JD's comments tangentially brought up a good point. Are we never going to have another blogger gettogether? Just because we're defunct as an official club doesn't mean we can't all take a lap around some large thing and then eat some terribly unhealthy food once in a while.

Or should we just meet up at the races? Who's running BlueBell?

Kieth.

The Kemah Bridge Challenge

April 2, 2007.

Okay, this will be the official post with all the necessary information for future reference.

Inspired by crazy Kemah Bridge Ultrarunners like Bob Linza, Buddy Brown, and Mark Henderson, I've decided to challenge the moderately crazy runner inside the rest of us to push themselves with some extra laps on the bridge. And I'll even back it up with a custom award of undefined form, handmade by myself, or possibly my friend Claudia if I can convince her to make some also.

Completion of the challenge consists of running 10 complete laps on the Kemah Bridge with only as much walking as you realistically feel that the walking didn't count. One lap is defined as the entire round trip, over the bridge and back, run the safe way, looping around under the overpasses on both sides, staying on the left side of the road at all times, like this. This distance is approximately 1.92 miles per trip, making the entire run about 19.2 miles.

Previous Award Winners are:

James David Dykas : April 6, 2007 : 10 laps in 3 hours 25 minutes

Questions you may have:

Who are you to pose a challenge like this? You haven't even done this yourself! - Fair point. You're right.

Is your "handmade award of undefined form" really worth this much effort? - Likely not.

How will you officially verify that I finished? Will you be there? - It's my backyard, so maybe I can be there. Otherwise I'll verify it by your lack of shifty eyes and your overall demeanor when you tell me you finished it. You could also provide a photo, as suggested by DirtRunner, to help convince me and the world. It would also help commemorate your achievement, which is nice.

How well equipped are the aid stations? - The aid stations are as well equipped as you equip them.

What will the award be like? What will it be made of? - The medal is still undesigned. Knowing myself, it might have a monkey on it. They might all be different. As far as the material, it might be made of clay, or metal, or nuts, or shells, or wood. I've also done some work with macaroni in my early years.

Where is the best place to park? - There's a little japanese restaurant named "Ichibon's" right where the start/finish is on this map, that's where the CLFC people park when they run the bridge.

Good luck!
Keith.

Bridge Challenge Roll Call

Ten loops on the bridge, as defined here, = 1 homemade trophy commemorating your mental instability.

To answer some questions:

Steve, no I don't have to be there, but it's possible that I can be since it's my backyard. And many times, the water that you stash there will still be there when you loop around, but one time, a guy from the club put a cooler with some provisions there and somebody stole it all.

JD, I don't know exactly what the award will be like, but probably not hobo-related. Maybe they will all be different (assuming I have to make more than one). Unless you really like hobos.

Christy, I'll make sure yours can be worn like a medal.

Steve and JD might try it. I might even have to do it also. Christy will do it if Sarah does it, and Sarah secretly wants to do it.

Keith.

10 miles Saturday morning

I didn't know how far I wanted to run. Probably 8 or 9. I started out with Ed and Robin from the club, around 6:00 AM. About 6:05 it got cold and started pouring, and about 6:10 it stopped raining altogether. We headed out from the parking lot at the Seabrook trails and headed south towards the Bridge. I ran about 6.7 miles in the first leg, over the bridge, down the boardwalk, and back to the trails. I stopped at the park for some candy and a very small amount of chit chat and then finished up my 10 miles on the trails. It was raining again, very hard, with lightning also and not mud, but huge pools of water on the trails. I kindof enjoyed it, but was a little frightened by a few lightning strikes that were too close for comfort. When I got back to the pavillion my GPS said 9.9 miles, so I had to continue on just a little further. I was afraid the people in the club would be upset by my running through the lightening and not finding shelter, but instead they cheered and said 'go!' as I ran by.

Keith.

Crazy Kemah Bridge Runners

Bob Linza started the Seabrook Lucky Trails Marathon. And it seems to have taken off pretty well.

Then, do you remember when Bob ran 14 loops for more than a full marathon distance on the Kemah Bridge? All by himself, before work on a Thursday morning. (I always wondered why that idea didn't take off like the Seabrook Marathon. - probably because it's crazy)

But now, two people have broken the record for most laps on the bridge. On Saturday, March 24th, Buddy Brown, of the CLFC ran 17 laps on the Kemah bridge! And then on Sunday, March 25th, Mark Henderson, of BARC also ran 17 laps on the bridge! So now it's tied at 17 laps on the bridge, and there's talk of trying to run 20.

FYI, a loop or a lap on the bridge is defined as the entire round trip, back and forth run the safe way, meaning looping around under the overpasses on both ends, always on the left side of the road of course. like this.

I understand the challenge to run farther and farther and more and more loops of the bridge, but it's already too much to be an active participant for a two-bit chump like me. How about 7 loops? that seems hard enough. Or 10, maybe that should be the standard challenge. Yeah! There should be a standard challenge for the only moderately crazy people. Okay, I'll define a standard challenge, and I'll even back it up with some hardware! If you, my loyal reader, run 10 consecutive laps on the Kemah bridge, I'll make you a custom award with my own little hands to commemorate you mental instability.

Rock on,
Keith.

Are you following me?

There's a lot to catch up on. A lot I haven't blogged. I've been busy with the Seabrook Marathon website, which should be less active for a while now that all the results are up, and all the pictures are up, and the feedback form is up.

But that's not all I've been up to. Here are just a few of the things I've done and not blogged about.

Ran the Seabrook Marathon Relay with my pals Yong, Heather, and Claudia.

Ran 8.25 miles with the club on the 24th, and even some with my long lost training partner.

Went ice skating on Sunday evening - 1 fall, getting better, less scared.

Ran 5 miles Monday morning.

Can you believe that? I even ran a race and didn't blog it!

Anyway, I brought my running clothes and ran after work this evening. There's a route around campus and down the bayou that is about 10K.

It was just about sunset time, and I got to see some bats flying around down by the bayou, which I thought was cool. I keep meaning to check out the bats around the Waugh Street Bridge. Has anybody seen them? Is it cool?

Anywho, I was running along, on the return trip along the bayou, and by this time it was already dark. Now, the bayou has some nice houses alongside it, and it looks like a nice area, but if you're running in that area at dusk, it will occur to you that only that one row of houses that border the bayou are nice, and the rest... is somewhat less nice. The bars on the doors and windows are a good clue to that.

Well, I'm running along and the first wierd thing I see is the silhouette of a man that apparently had just been laying on the ground. There's a grassy area between the road and the bayou trail, and he had been laying there for some time. As he started walking around it was quite clear that he was completely intoxicated. He was stumbling and stomping around, and it was strange because he was dressed in what looked like a sportscoat and nice pants. How he got there, and how he got so intoxicated so early in the day is a question I had too. He was fairly young, maybe early 20s, and much too drunk to be a real threat to a strapping vibrant young man like myself, but I ran softly anyway until I passed him.

But then there was this other guy, walking on the trail ahead, and he yells out, "Hey white boy!" This other guy was a very large black man, who could have been a threat to me if he wanted to be, but it was clear he was addressing the drunk. "Are you following me?! Are you following me!?" he yells at the drunk man. On and on he yelled, "I saw you over there, when I was there, and now you're here! Are you following me?!" The drunk guy looked completely terrified. There was only yelling though, and I don't think there was ever any real threat to anybody. I think he was just having some fun, messing with the drunk guy. It's fun to mess with drunk people. I understand that.

But anyway, I covered the 6+ miles, and now, with 8 on Saturday, 5 on Monday, and 6 on Wednesday, it's almost starting to look like I'm an actual runner. It feels good to get back into it. I've been running lately, but mostly just the group runs on the weekends. It has been hard to get myself out the door for more miles all by myself. I'm getting over that though.

Rock on.
Keith.

I like this picture

Strength training in rats. There are bundles of dried spaghetti the rats can reach for and break. They can break more and more after several weeks of training. No other reason to post it, but I like the picture.

While I'm posting random things, I like this picture too.



He's pissed off because there was no reward in the dish.

Anyway. Still running. Posting later.
Keith.

Pictures from the Seabrook Marathon

This was 10 minutes or so before the start of the Half Marathon on Saturday. Can you tell who will win?


JD and Jaclyn finishing the half marathon.


"That medal better be as big as my head!" -- Sarah


I thought you looked familiar! If I was thinking clearly I'd have said "Hello." Sorry Christy! It was nice almost meeting you.


Bob and Tonia catching up.


Bob and Ginger, Ginger and Bob. Bob is about an hour or so away from finishing his own TMC when this picture was taken.


If you look at the high resolution version, you can see Brenda has even pierced her navel. And Lori has a lower back tattoo.

My two favorite pictures of all time. Hi Joe. Actually, this was the only minute where Joe was resting. He was very enthusiastic the whole weekend, but they're still my favorite pictures.