I’ve been playing with a new blog tool. I’m going to experiment with MarsEdit (30 day trial) to see how I like it.

One thing I’m looking for is some form of WYSIWYG mode for when I’m not in the mood. ecto / typepad composer both have that feature. It’s not a deal breaker though (it has other nice features).

Manifesto - a public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives, as one issued by a government, sovereign, or organization. source

Just took a week off to recover from the 2nd marathon but it’s has also been time to reflect and take stock about life and where it’s headed. I’ve needed to write this for awhile but haven’t. Sometimes when you’re in a hole, the answer is not to dig harder or faster but just stop and take a moment to see that you’re in a ditch. The numerous longs runs I’ve taken this last 18 weeks and the solace I’ve found in them has given me time to reflect on things.

Work != Job. I see this more clearly now. For a brief period in the beginning, they overlapped. Lately that’s not been happening. That’s when I began to feel this way. Someone once told me that I needed to take charge of my own career. I haven’t done that. I’ve felt this way for the last couple of years and I should have pulled the plug some time ago. For personal reasons, now is not the time for that. I’m stuck in a quagmire and the exit strategy has to be executed on a precise time line.

I’m happiest when my work allows me to learn new things and improve things. I’m depressed when it involves slinging shit around and trying to make sense of process upon process. I need to break out of this. Hopefully in the coming months, you’ll see these changes emerging.

It’s been a couple of days since I finished the marathon. I needed a couple of days to remember what happened on Sunday. The entire day just blurred together for me.

We got up early. I was up by 3:45. Absent mindedly I put my oat meal into another bag and didn’t discover it until I got home later that day. To compensate I ate some clif bars. I’ve been eating wih oatmeal this season but I have eaten clif bars in the past. This is something I need to work into my training routine, eating a variety of foods, to prepare me for when I’m in a hotel or an unfamiliar place.

We walked to downtown Bellevue park. At 5am, it felt just about right for a run. Cool but not too hot. This was going to be a hot day. Most of the team was at the TNT tent when we got there around 5:05. The team congregated outside the tent for the next 20 minutes, applying sunscreen, pinning things to jerseys and making casual talk. We huddled up around 5:20, Bonni and Jim gave us some advice and instructions and we did a big “Go Team!”

We caught the shuttle at 5:30 and arrived at the start line about an hour before the race start. I was definitely feeling the nerves. I just wanted to get it started. The sun was starting to get hotter. 7am rolled around and a 15 minute delay was announced. I was down in the corrals waiting for the race to get started. 7:15 came and the race was started.

I started off too fast. It felt like a nice easy pace but I had trouble slowing down for the 1st 3 miles. I ran the 1st mile in about 10:30 which is too fast for me. Mari ran up alongside me and told me to slow down. I guess too much ardrenalin was going through me. In the future, I might try taking more aggressive walk breaks, especially at the start. The first part was a good run. Running across 520 was a great experience. I wished I slowed down to enjoy it more.

I felt good until we hit Meydenbauer around mile 7.5. There was a crowd of supporters and I gave Kit a high 5. I started to feel the heat get to me. When I got to the top of the first big hill, Jim was there giving us all support. Thanks Jim! I ran all those hills in training but I walked up them this time. I tried to rest of the down hill stretches. I don’t remember there being that many hills in training (ahh selective memory) but I also don’t rememer it being that hot.

Running up that long stretch of Bellevue Way felt like being roasted in an oven. The sun was starting to become unrelenting at that point. I’m not a quitter but I had to make a decision at mile 11:
a) Go straight and quit. Just finish 13 miles.
b) Take that right turn onto 12th. Go the distance.

I was seriously tempted to go straight. Then I remembered the personal story Kit gave the night before. Remembered how it made me feel when she told her story. I took the left turn. I pulled level with Sam and we chatted until I made a restroom stop.

We hit bridle trails. It was shaded and I walked a lot! I probably walked bridle trails the entire way. I also started to cramp. Jim pulled up to give some words of encouragement.

D: So is this hot?
J: I’ve been in hotter. But this is pretty hot.

I’m going to miss than man!

Jim gave me two salt pills and told me to take them. He handed me two more and told me to take one every 45 minutes. They helped. My cramping definitely eased up after that.

We got done with Bridle trails around mile 15. I caught up with Sam at that point. After that point, we were inseperable. The next 5 miles were not memorable. There was this really nasty hill in there. And lots of downhills.

I was just trying to get it done at this point. It was awesome to run with Sam. Having her to chat with made everything go a lot easier. We basically ran under the sun and walked under the shade to recover our strength. Glen gave me that invaluable advice around mile 11.

At mile 20, we shouted at a photographer to not take our photos. We were taking a walk break and we didn’t want to look bad. :) A moment later, I recognized the photographer as my good friend Riley. I was ecstatic to see him. We had planned this for a while but seeing him out there was a great feeling. Riley ran with us for the next half mile, snapping photos of us with his new camera. Having Riley there gave me a little shot of energy.

Mile 21 - 23 was brutal. It was a pretty stretch of Kirkland running along the water. Being  completely exposed to the sun and having the exhaust from cars driving by made it less than optimal though. We kept moving though. We met Diana, this incredibly cool 60 year old who was going to run 12 marathons this year. She told us about the Chicago marathon that was called off because of the heat. Thankfully it was not as bad at this one.

We hit mile ~24 and we see a familiar figure in this green coaching jersey. Jim! I was so glad to see him I gave him a big hug. I told Jim I could “smell the barn”. Jim and I had talked about that during our training runs and I latched onto the phase now. We fast walked up that hill where we met Kathy, another coach. We ran some more and met Jeffery, another coach. We were close and nothing was going to stop us at this point. We walked up 2 hills around mile 25. With the finish line in sight, we busted down that last downhill. My friends Riley and Bob were waiting on 100th just before the finish line. They ran with me that last quarter mile. It was great to have them there. We took a left turn and I used my last ounce of energy to finish strong.

Finally it was done. Definitely a different experience from the first one. I have many thanks to give.

Thanks to Riley and Bob for being there at the finish.

Thanks to all the people who supported me by contributing to my fund raising campaign all season.

Thanks to the TNT coaches, staff, volunteers, team mates and everyone else who got me to the start line and cheered me throughout the race.

Thanks to Sam for keeping my spirits up those last couple of miles. I’ll miss running with her and all my other great team mates every Saturday.

Thanks to Mari, Glen, Jeffery and Kathy for being out there with us.

Thanks to Jim, our coach and fearless leader, for getting us well prepared to run this marathon and helping me to realize that I might have a touch of crazy.

Thanks to Kit for being my inspiration, helping me to appreciate what I have and being the reason we’re out there.

Thanks to Bonni without whom none of this would never have happened.

Thanks to my sweetheart, Sheila, for waking up every Saturday morning and listening to my endless whining about training, nutrition, hydration and aches.

It’s almost time. I was struggling to come up with words to describe how I feel at this moment. The last marathon I was oncall right up until the day before. I was stressed out about the high severity ticket that had come in Thursday. I handed it off to another person (pre-arranged) Saturday morning and did not have time to collect my thoughts before the race. That might have been a good thing or bad thing. I don’t know.

I worry of course. It’s my nature. The Seattle PI reports the weather is going to be hot on Sunday. We’ve been training in unusually cold weather. I worry that I’ll melt under the heat. I worry that I don’t have the strength to finish. It’s best not to worry about the things that I can’t control. Training with Jim has taught me that. All I need to focus on is the right pace. Getting into a groove and feeling right about being out there. Sharing the course with my team mates and coach for one last time. Being grateful for being able to do this.

Training is done.

**Rocky Balboa - Training Montage**

That’s how the season felt. With the up and downs of training. I find the Rocky movies the best expression of how I feel sometimes. I just have one final round left this season:

Rocky Balboa - Final Round

Seven days until the marathon.

We've been tapering for the last two weeks after the 20 miler. The previous weekend was spent on Tiger mountain running 12 miles.

Yesterday was our last team practice as we ran 8 miles around the Greenlake area. This has been a great training season for me, I've been extremely privileged to work with Jim (coach) and a core group of team mates.  I felt a touch of melancholy at the thought of not seeing Jim, Kit, and the team every Saturday. When you start out marathon training, it's uncomfortable. Going outside when its dark, wet, cold (or a combination) is hard. It's hard to motivate yourself sometimes. When you do it with a group, that you bond with over the course of the season, going out to run no longer becomes uncomfortable. It becomes something you get done.

On our very last Thursday run, me and Jim chatted while we warmed up around the park. He talked about how a marathon is a training exercise, how that when I got it done I would miss waking up early on those Saturday mornings. For him, the greatest pleasure was the discipline of setting a plan and executing on it. The main event is in many ways a victory lap for those months and months of preparation that was required.

Throughout the season, Kit has been an incredible source of inspiration for me. The ability to do what she has done and live with CLL. She's always shown up at our Saturday practices even though it drains her energy deeply. Having her at the coldest days of the season handing out hand warmers was a great motivator for me to keep moving. Like her, many CLL patients fight constant challenges to keep a sense of normalcy.

Unlike them, I have one final challenge left this season. One long run to get done.

Alas I’m done with script frenzy. Having done NaNoWrimo before,Script Frenzy felt like an easier challenge. Sadly I didn’t have thetime to devote to it this month.

For people interested, the page count ended at 57 pages.

It was fun though. If I do it again, I would like to do more prepwork around formatting a screen play. I kinda of jumped into it withoutthinking through the ramifications.

coming back soon. been busy with a ton of other stuff.

Testing

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I can blog from my iphone!!!

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MVP: Nashty!
Best Trade: Boozer,AI2 for EB
Best Waiver Wire Pickup: Pau Gasol
Best Free Agent Pickup: Al Jefferson
Worst Pick: Diaw
Best Pick: TJ Ford/GDub
My Sleeper Pick for 2007: David Lee