Boston Roll Call

My blood blister burst over the weekend. I am still sore but was able to get two runs in this weekend. Pancho is calming down from his separation anxiety. And like most of us, I have to a five day work week coming up. In other words, the dust from the Boston Marathon has finally settled. My summary is in the post below. For more stories...

Nasty Nate summarizes his race. Open letter to the Nasty Man: you are too hard on yourself. I think we all tend to second-guess ourselves after a race. Outside of the winner, all runners tend to analyze and deconstruct their race. We find things we did wrong or wish we did differently more than we celebrate what we did right. Bottom line: you ran a fine race.

I for one am already wondering what would have happened if I had been more aggressive after the first three miles.

So I admire Nathan's race in that he ran aggressively yet intelligently, compared to my "hedging my bets" style of running.

Awalt has a nice recap of how connected we feel to those who follow us from afar and some nice tidbits that explain why Boston is such a special occasion. And I agree, there is something emotional about crossing the checkpoint mat every 5k. You'd here the mat beep and you know your split time was being posted on the web for all your family and friends to see. I felt suddenly connected to my running friends here, Emily, and my family in Texas every time I heard that beep.

No Handle Chad summarizes his race here, talks about what makes the Boston crowd special here, and highlights the women's' trials and, well ME (sort of) here.

Fancy Kirk deconstructs his 2:55 and ends up feeling just as happy with his time as I did mine. Open letter to Fancy Kirk: your take that Boston is essentially for the 40+ year-old marathoner with disposable time and income is a good one.

Tall Colin has some pictures of me, Mr. Nasty, and Mr. Fancy, along with a story of why the Boston crowds are different than any other. A good read for sure.

Running to The Walking City

Well, now I know why the Boston Marathon is such a big deal. It truly is special. There are runners who have tried for five years to qualify and finally did. And there are others who love the city and the race so much they have been there for the last 20 years. But no matter what, every runner is more excited to be at Boston. I feel lucky to have been a part of it all.

And I feel extremely lucky that we had ideal weather for the spectators and runners.

Here are the nuts and bolts of the race: I ran a 2:55, good for a PR.

I ran the (mostly downhill) first half of the marathon in 1:29 and I followed that up with a 1:26 second half. Somewhere between the 35k mark and the finish (42k), I must have thrown in an 18:00 5k.

So basically I sandbagged my way to a PR. I sat in the weeds for 16 miles. Halfway up the first Newton hill, I decided to start pushing it. Maybe not the gutsiest way to run a race, but it has to be the only comfortable way to run that course.

Now, onto the pictures, taken by Emily around mile 24.


Fancy Kirk, on his way to a 2:55 of his own. We had two very different races. Two guys who run a 2:55 in a marathon can have as much in common with their race as two golfers who both shoot an 85 in 18 holes of golf. Bottom line is, Mr. Fancy "schooled me" by 18 seconds, good for 5th fastest among Twin City marathoners.



Emily said I looked really happy when I passed her. This picture offers photographic proof to the contrary.



Duel of the Bald Guys.

What a race. The crowd really is unique in Boston. There is a connection we the runners have with the spectators that you can find nowhere else. From the families handing out sponges and water in the early towns, to the drunk college kids in Boston, and the rabid marathon lovers as we head into downtown, you really felt the crowd. They were just as much a part of the race as we were. They weren't just there to cheer on their friends and family. Instead they were there to cheer on the entire field.

No Handle Chad and and Tall Colin both did an excellent job of capturing what the Boston crowd is like.

And it was awesome to be a part of it. Here's to Boston 2009.

Cool Pictures

Los Deets has cool aeriel photos of our neighborhood and some of St. Paul he took from an airplane. I wonder if I heard the plane as it was passing overhead.

Click here to see them.

One Week Out

The Boston Marathon is one week away. Emily and I will be flying out first thing Friday morning, assuming the FAA and American Airlines will have their shit together by then. The race is Monday and we fly out the next day.

This isn't a marathon I really have a lot of goals for. I assume I will accomplish my basic goal: be healthy enough to start the race. After that, I'd like to finish, break 3:00, and anything beyond that is gravy.

No matter what happens in Boston, I already accomplished a huge goal, and that was to be in good shape at the start of spring. And I had a lot fun along the way, training with Fancy Kirk and Nasty Nate.


This picture is from the Run the Valley 5k/10k two Saturdays ago. The close observer will note that Fancy Kirk and Nasty Nate are both sporting champion's medals. I have an equipment bag. I was bascially their water boy. Kirk won the 10k, Nathan won his age-group in the 5k, and got beat by an Olympian. Me? I got to hold their Gatorade.

One of the highlights was doing our lone 20 mile run with Minnesota's most famous blogging marathoner.

Throughout the week, all four of us (myself, Fancy Kirk, Nasty Nate, and Chad the Blogger) will likely be updating our week of anticipation. Obviously, I'll stop after Thursday since I'll be in Boston and not blogging. Check in afterwards for full reports.

Click here for Fancy Kirk's blog. He already got up at 4 a.m. yesterday because of his marathon fever.

Click here for Chad the Blogger's updates. I see Chad once a month now, but thanks to his blog, it's like I see him every day.

Click here for Nasty Nate. If the shape of the Minnesota gets him fired up, imagine how hard he'll be typing on the keyboard, USING ALL CAPS, and lots of exclamation points as we get closer and closer to next Moday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

Random List #6

1. Something I Cannot Do Whistle.

2. Something That Has Never Worked Another person saying, "What? You never learned how to whistle? It's really easy. Here, let me show you." And then the person proceeds to try to teach me to whistle before giving up after about 30 seconds.

3. Worthless Skill That I Am the Worst At (besides whistling) Foreign accents.

4. Last Place I Shopped Petco. I bought kitty litter and a new water bowl for the cats. Nothing for Pancho.

5. Today's Sign That I Am Getting Older I spent two minutes debating whether or not I should also by some new airtight food containers that Petco sells, but ultimately decided I should get Emily's input. Live it up!

6. Number Of Times I Ate at a Restaurant This Weekend Four.

7. Number of Meals I Have Cooked For Myself or Emily in 2008 Two.

8. Dumbest Argument I Had As A Child I got in a fight with my mom that my eyes were not blue, but red, because that was my favorite color. Despite the fact that she had all the evidence in her favor, she eventually agreed with me about seven seconds into the fight.

9. Least Favorite Condiment Mustard.

10.First Song I Learned All the Words To "The Gambler," by Kenny Rogers.

Uncle F

I am an uncle to yet another child.

Click here for pictures. Emily sure looks comfortable holding eight pounds of human, compared to me.

No word yet what the new baby's name is. For now, I'm calling him "Q." And no word yet what will happen the the name of the blog, "followart." Art is Q's older brother, so the name of the blog will have to be changed. It just to show how much more complicated life gets when you double the number of kids you have.

Elvis Is Back in the Building

Emily's blog is back up and running. It's as good as new.

Phew.

Ugh-ly

Just because a basketball game is close does not mean it was a good game, or a well-played game. Last night's NCAA title game proved that. Basically, Kansas sucked less than Memphis in the end.

So does anyone think the pro or college game is better now than it was 15 years ago? Has anyone benefited from the fact that no makes it past his sophomore year before turning pro? The college game suffers. The pro games suffers. Fans suffer.

Oh yeah, players and agents really benefit big time, and we fans keep paying to watch. So I guess things will stay the same as long as this is true, no matter how much people like me piss and moan.



And now I have that &%*$#@!@! "One Shining Moment" song stuck in my head.

Oh well. Chalmers shot was pretty exciting.

Random Question #890321

Do runners drink more alcohol than the average American?

The Deets already posted about a pizza party Emily and I had at my house last Thursday. Click here for his report on The Battle of Longfellow Pizzas.

We had all this pizza at my house as part of the "closing ceremonies" to an annual workout we run on a track near my house. So there were 12 of us over at my house after the run. After everyone left, I gathered, rinsed, and put all the empty bottles together.


The close observer will note a few Coke and Gatorade empties, but also an empty champaign bottle, to go along with all those beer bottles.

So as I was cleaning, I thought about my non-running friends here in the Twin Cities, my college friends (those who don't run anymore or played other sports), my family, and my high school friends. If you put all those people together, I don't know if all those people combined would have had as many beers as the 12 of us did on that Thursday night.

And this was a very tame social event. No one was even close to being out-of-control. It's just that we all enjoy drinking beer.

So I'm not suggesting runners are drunks. In fact, in all my years of running and knowing runners, I personally know of only one person who actually had a drinking problem. And that was in college. And no formal diagnosis was made. And that dude was never going to be a scoring runner on our team, in part because of his drinking.

So beer is at the center of most running circles, and I don't think it is unhealthy or bad. But I do wonder, is this true for other subcultures? Chess enthusiasts? Bloggers? Cartoonists?

As Good As It Gets

Last night Emily and I went to dinner in Uptown with some friends of ours. On the drive back, as we went down Hennepin Avenue towards I-94, Emily asked about three times if I wanted to go to Sebastian Joe's. As I kept on saying, "No, not really," it dawned on me what she was really saying. She wasn't so much asking me if I wanted to go there, but telling me to.

But I had bought bag of Oreos the night before at Wallgreen's and had eaten many of them earlier in the day. And that was really all the sugar I wanted to subject body to in one day.

Or was it?

As we got on I-94, I realized Izzy's was more or less on the way home. So I suggested we go there. In my opinion, Izzy's is that good. I had overdosed on sugar to the point that I did not feel the need to appease my wife's request for ice cream, with one exception. Izzy's is just too good to pass up.

I ordered Coffee Break with Tiramisu as an Izzy scoop. They also had Peace Coffee flavored ice cream and coffee ice cream with Fine Grind Coffee--the coffee shop next door (thanks Emily for remembering that one). Three coffee flavors. Weird.

I can't wait for the spring to get warm enough for Emily and I to ride our bikes to Izzy's. That will be fun.

So now that warm weather is upon us, it is probably time to rank the best ice cream shops in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

5. Grand Ole Creamery. Maybe it's because the way they spell the word "ole" (a reference to Scandanavian culture?) annoys me, or maybe it's just because the ice cream is actually too sweet for me (I didn't know this was possible), but there are clearly four places I would go to before I go to Ye Grande Olde Creamerye. But I'd still go there if I was in the neighborhood.

4. Sebastian Joe's. Nice range of flavors. Good atmosphere. Maybe I don't go there enough. But in my opinion their ice cream has always been very good, just not as great as the three shops ahead of them. I guess I would describe the ice cream as dutifully delicious. But the Sebastian Joe's in Linden Hills definitely has the best outdoor seating of all the places on this list.

3. Crema. Home of Sonny's ice cream. I love Sonny's ice cream. Crema could probably be bumped up to number two, but they have so many other good desserts that Sonny's ice cream gets lost in the shuffle.

2. Pumphouse Creamery. A bit overpriced, but they do a nice job of using only (mostly?) locally grown and produced ingredients. They also do a good job of reminding you again and again about this fact. But the ice cream is good, I certainly support the effort to buy locally, and they have some fun flavors.

1. Izzy's. Izzy's has it all. Outdoor and indoor seating. A nice range of flavors. Solar power. The ice cream is creamy and sweet, but not too creamy and sweet. And of course, they have the izzy scoop.

Technical Difficulties

Emily's Reuben Sandwich blog was accidentally deleted. She is trying to contact blogger to get it back on-line. So all you Emily fans take a step back from the ledge. I am confident her blog will be restored soon.