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Something that resembles a recap of some runnings I did recently
I have, for some reason or another, not found the motivation to write about running. Really, I haven't had the motivation to write at all recently. For that matter, I have struggled to do much of anything at all, almost constantly desiring having my feet up on the recliner, taking a snooze, maybe a beer, that sort of thing. It's not like I feel particularly run down, at least not physically. It's been a mental lull for a while. And I have been somewhat embarrassed about my behavior and the way "training" has been going of late so actually writing about it has not been high on my to-do list. But I started this thing to keep myself accountable, and so that years from now I could look back and shake my head at 26 year old Mark and all his follies (presumably from an older, wiser, more responsible perspective but who am I really kidding? I'll just be older).
So what HAVE I been doing? Well, this is where things become relative. I was running on the Company Mill trail at Umstead yesterday when it sort of hit me that I'm being an idiot in my head. Or at least, possibly a trifle too hard on myself. The past two weeks I've run almost exactly the same: 101 miles, and a hair under 14 hours. The setup of those weeks was pretty different. Two weeks ago, I ran pretty evenly, with my longest run being 22 miles on Saturday. I also did my first beer mile, three hours after that 22, in 7:45ish. And didn't throw up. It was a decent showing. Last week I started things off with 28 on Monday. It was hot and I was tired and pushing things a little. I probably shouldn't be as disappointed with 28 miles right at 8:00 on very tired legs and being pretty severely dehydrated, but I was, and still sort of am. Whatever. The rest of the week was kinda weird. I had a lot of shorter runs, some of them kind of quick, despite the heat. Then a miserable long day Saturday wherein I finished up at 10pm and looked like a raisin from the rain.
Sunday was cool but not really because of the running I did. I went to the Duke Twilight meet with a local runner lady who was quite good company, maybe more on that down the road (I hope). I saw Alan Webb and Robby Andrews run the 800 and Anthony Famiglietti run the steeple. It was pretty awesome. Kind of helped salvage another otherwise meh two weeks.
I didn't do anything on Monday, except eat a delicious cheeseburger. Yesterday I felt like some of my mojo was coming back. 18 miles at Umstead, slow but relaxed. And I didn't hate running. In fact, originally I was going to be happy with anything around 10, but I was enjoying myself and my legs felt good so I kept on. This weekend will be the next real test, I'll see just how recovered I am from Umstead and/or how out of shape I've gotten. It'll also be the first time my family will see me run a race since I did the National Marathon three years ago. That feels like a completely different life, and in many ways, particularly running-wise, it was. So I'm excited that they'll see me more in my element, running an ultra. And there's that relative thing again. When I ran that marathon, I thought I was pretty awesome because I ran 3:09 and qualified for Boston. I was averaging maybe 30 or so miles/week. I was not even close to in the sort of shape I'm in now, even on a bad day. So maybe I DO need to be a little nicer myself, or at least cut myself the slightest bit of slack.
Someone on the Ultra List posted something that resonated big time with me; about feeling some sort of running 'blues' and being a twenty-something ultrarunner who sacrifices a lot of their social life for the sake of training and races and all that. How there is a very palpable loneliness that comes along with this sort of lifestyle, especially when you're new to an area. I could have written something very similar. I've only been down here for nine months and I've made some very good friends but at the end of the day, I still come home to the apartment and it's just Puck and darkness when I open the door. And Puck is awesome but a cat is not an adequate substitute for a human being, even a really adorable cat. I've taken some strides to overcome my myriad social phobias and hang-ups but I still often feel some sense of something lacking, a void. There's always that letdown following a big race. Umstead was that sort of race, so part of this I know is probably normal, and part of it is just the way I am. Work in progress. Fitness is always evolving, hopefully usually improving. Likewise, mentality takes work too. Social skills require practice. Most of this is only loosely based on ultrarunning but it all seems(seemed) relevant so I figured I'd write it down. As the Ultra List thread awared me, I'm not the only one who feels like this occasionally (or usually). So it's on to looking ahead to the next race, and the next one after, with the hope of meeting more runners who might someday turn into friends, or at least sharing some happy exhausted time post-race with some good people and filling that void for a few hours.
Til next time, RUN HAPPY everyone!
Weekly recap (one worth recapping)
As the title says, last week was a week that feels worth a recap. And one with significantly less bitching and whining and all that nonsense.
Mon – off, still tired from Sunday
Tue – 13 miles, 1:47, around Cary, down Harrison and then along Maynard for a while, just exploring
Wed – 10 miles total, ~73 minutes, 2.5 solo (19 min) and then 7.5 (54 min) with the Fullsteam run group (mostly Zane, Matt, per usual)
Thu – 9 miles, 72 minutes, Umstead bridle trail to Loblolly
Fri – 23 miles, 3:16, Duke XC loop, five 4 mile loops + one 3 mile loop at the end, water after each loop
Sat – 17 miles, 2:22, Umstead, included one course loop (1:43ish) + an extension on the Lake Crabtree singletrack
Sun – 18 miles, 2:34, Umstead, basically the same run as Saturday with different extension (on bridle path instead)
Total – 90 miles, ~12:20
So yeah, this started to actually feel like I was training again, at least by the end of the week. Which is funny because it's really all relative. In 2010, 80 miles was the most I ran in any given week. Now ten extra miles feels like I'm starting to approach normal again. Progress. It was a nice feeling to be able to run with my friends at what felt like a normal effort at Wednesday's run. And Friday to Sunday, running 58 miles and feeling pretty good at the end on Sunday, was a really encouraging sign. My legs actually feel better than they have been, the worrying aches have been replaced with general and expected levels of soreness.
I was in a pretty good mental place for most of Sunday's run too, thinking about the coming weeks. As of last Saturday, I'm twelve weeks out from the Philly 24 hour race. Twelve weeks out from Umstead was a week before the 100k. I was nowhere near the sort of shape I'm in now, even if I DO feel heavy and slow — I felt much moreso then. Somewhere in the middle of the Turkey Creek section on Sunday some sort of switch flipped back into the "ON" position in my head. Recovery from Umstead was over, time to stop babying myself and being overly cautious (by my standards). Time to put my head back down and starting grinding. Twelve weeks. That's ten weeks of A LOT of work and then two weeks to get fresh and ready. This was the last week I'll be south of 100 miles until July. I'm actually excited to get back into the grind, to give myself less free time to waste doing stuff I will later regret or at least be annoyed with myself for attempting.
If I were the type to come up with names for things and actually write out a training schedule that I'd post on my wall with all sorts of motivational words like "Perseverance" and "Dedication" and pictures of serious looking animals or of Pre to keep me focused (which I am decidedly not), this would be the time to do it. Instead I'll let Katie's poster of Trogdor (and the overwhelming desire not to suck) do that for me.
Til next time, RUN HAPPY everyone!
What the hell have I been doing?
That is a question I have asked myself many times the past 2+ weeks. It has been an interesting stretch since Umstead. I know I meant to write some other thoughts and general reflections from that race, and I still intend to. But I probably won't if I'm being honest with myself. Or I will, but they won't be particularly relevant anymore. I'm not going to bother doing an in depth recap of the last 2+ weeks since the race because, well, that would be worthless. I ran some. 30ish miles the first week, 50ish miles last week. There were more days where I didn't run than those where I did, or so it felt. Some of the runs felt surprisingly alright, some of them felt downright miserable. My left big toe tendon made its presence known again briefly. I still have random intermittent aches and pains. I guess, in general, I feel like I ran 100 miles in one day.
So if I wasn't running as much, what else was I doing in order to optimally recover? Of course there was the beer. I deemed my performance worthy of cracking open the Dogfish Head Bitch's Brew I've had since October. And then cracking open beer after beer after beer, virtually depleting my fairly impressive fridge supply. There were some drugs, most of them legal. There was not enough sleep, not even close. I was on spring break last week and spent the early part of it acting like it was 2007 and I was still a stupid undergrad (not implying that ALL undergrads are stupid, just that undergrad Mark circa 2006-07 was a fucking moron more often than not). I spent the second half of the week sort of attempting to recover from the beginning. And also sort of attempting to get back into some sort of regular running thing. My first run last week was 9 miles on Thursday afternoon. I hadn't run since Saturday. That Saturday, I had felt a familiar and troubling pain on the top of my left foot. And, like the previous time late last year/early this year, I went through the cycle of freaking out that I'd given myself a stress fracture, realizing that was a dumb thing to think, further realizing it was a tendon issue, and being grumpy about it. Fortunately, just like last time, it magically went away on it's own as the week progressed. Thursday's run was uncomfortable but by Sunday it was a non-issue. I did my best to cram some running into the end of the week, spending my weekend at Umstead (15 on the bridle trails Saturday, 20 on the single track Sunday). I haven't felt as bad during a run as I did Sunday afternoon in the last hourish when I was severely dehydrated, my feet hurt, and I was tired.
I don't know where I intended to go with all this, I wrote some of it a day ago. The point, I guess, is that I haven't been doing a whole lot of running, and I HAVE been doing a whole lot of livewrong, as Johnny would put it. I haven't bothered to weigh myself but I'd imagine I packed on at least a few pounds during my binge. I feel pretty heavy and slow when I've been out running most days, especially last week. I took Monday off this week because I needed to recharge a little. Of course, I then stayed up til 2am watching the NHL playoffs and then a redbox movie. I know a lot of people, smart people who I respect, have told me not to be so hard on myself, both in general and specifically right now. Something about how I ran 100 miles and ran it reasonably well and that was only two (now two and a half) weeks ago and so OF COURSE I should still feel meh at the best and downright awful at the worst. I got a fortune cookie last night that wasn't much of a fortune but it was pretty accurate anyway. It said something like, "You relentlessly seek perfection" or something like that. I am the world's worst perfectionist. I haven't exactly been living like I care about perfection (or even mediocrity for that matter), but I do. I DID care how I did at Umstead. I DO care about how I'm going to run at the races I have coming up in the next few months. And maybe, probably, I am being a bit too hard on myself when I look at the last two weeks and think that mostly I was just a lazy waste of oxygen. Maybe it was a good thing that I spent a lot of time not running or doing much of anything exercise related. The thing is, I don't even think I'm particularly disappointed with the running aspect of everything. I accept that I wasn't and shouldn't have been able to just jump back into the 120+ miles/week grind. That's fine. I guess what I'm disappointed in is how I DID choose to spend a good chunk of the last two weeks. Instead of sleeping a lot and resting and relaxing and recovering, I pushed myself more toward feeling burned out and exhausted than most of my big February weeks. And doing stupid crap that also made me go through a lot of money that I don't really have to waste. Like I said above, I was acting and living like I was a senior in college again and that didn't turn out so well then. Blah blah blah don't be so hard on yourself, seriously, you're just annoying everyone with your ridiculous self-loathing drivel. This isn't Livejournal.
This whole entry is starting to feel much more like a personal blog than a training-focused one so I guess I should just stop. I'm not as miserable as this probably comes off. Well, sometimes I am. But there is some sunshine — THIS week has been some better. Tuesday I ran relatively pain free. Last night I was back at the Fullsteam run and cruising around Durham with some friends and feeling pretty strong and comfortable (despite the 7:20s we were clicking off, a good minute/mile faster than I'd probably run on my own). I'm resisting the urge to just run until it gets dark after work like I'll be doing in a few weeks. I'm planning some actual long runs this weekend and feeling excited about it. My social life may be getting eversoslightly less cloudy and less lonely. I should probably stop whining so much. Heh. We'll see. I've got a trail calling me right now and I wanna be done before Community starts.
Til next time, RUN HAPPY everyone!
2012 Umstead 100 Mile Endurance Run race report
On Saturday I ran the Umstead 100 mile Endurance Run. It was my first 100 mile race ever. But to accurately and fully write a recap of this race, I need to go back some beyond four days ago. Back to last June when I went to a Baltimore Road Runners Club picnic. It was there that I talked some with Serge Arbona, mostly about the races he'd done and the ones he had coming up. For those who don't know, Serge is one of the most accomplished ultrarunners around (and a REALLY nice guy to boot!). I was only a few weeks away from moving to North Carolina and he joked that I should come pace him at Umstead next year, as I was going to be living close by. At the time I had never run more than 31 miles but somehow a seed had been planted. Fast forward to September 7th, the day registration was opening up for this year's race. Umstead tends to fill up very fast, like five minutes fast. I happened to have a bit of a break at work at noon when registration was set to open. I decided that I would try to register. Whether I got in or not I would take as a sign from the universe on how to proceed going forward. As luck would have it, right around 12:02pm, I was officially registered to run. At that point I had still hadn't run an ultra since the 50k disaster in DC in November of 2009. But if I didn't want to waste my money, I was going to run my first 100 miler in a few months.
Fast forward a bit. I ran some longer races last year, to mixed results. I got some experience and miles on my legs. I got a little fat and out of shape by the time I ran Weymouth Woods in January. Fortunately, something clicked after that race. Despite being sorta fat and out of shape I ran reasonably well and reasonably even splits and recovered quicker than I probably ought to have. I guess I made up my mind there to get my shit together and train seriously and maybe I'd be able to survive the whole ordeal.
I had some pretty good, encouraging results leading up to Umstead. But in the few down weeks leading up to the race, I was consistently more looking forward to seeing my friends and some runners that I admire than I was about actually running it. The race was more an excuse for everything else. I remember telling someone only a few days before that I was a little nervous that I wasn't really feeling nervous or anxious at all. For once I felt like I had done everything right, or as right as I could manage making things up as I go along. By Wednesday of race week my legs felt better than they have ever felt. Ever. I was starting to get a little excited.
Thursday night Katie, my amazing crew chief, flew in from Boston. Despite having extremely limited ultra experience (as in, she crewed for me at Stone Cat and that was it), I was confident that my life was in the best hands possible. Friday morning Johnny showed up and Team Awesome was fully assembled. But the fun was just beginning. Part of why I was so excited about this race was who else was coming down to RUN it. In addition to Serge, Christian was coming down to crew/pace him. As was Dave Ploskonka, another very accomplished ultrarunner from Baltimore who I met when we both paced the 10 miler there last June and then I crewed him at Hellgate last December. Those two I knew, and look up to a great deal as both have run some incredible races and have a ton of knowledge and experience and bad-ass-ness to their credit. In addition to them, last year's race winner, John Dennis, was running. So were a couple other guys who ran very fast times last year. And Mike Morton, who had already run 13:18 in Florida in January and almost broke the American 24 hour record last September (running 163+ miles). In short, there were A LOT of really good runners there and with a course that is entirely runnable, I was pretty excited to see what would happen.
Friday was a bit of an adventure. Dave's car got towed in Baltimore so he was having a rough start to the weekend but DID manage to get down here in time to suffer through what was apparently not the most enthralling pre-race briefing ever. We all missed that briefing because we had to drive out to Chapel Hill and pick up Serge and Christian from a mechanic. Apparently Serge's car was shot. We got to the park a little after 6 and I got my race bib and after Serge and Christian got their stuff out of Johnny's trunk, the three of us headed to my pre-race pizza place, Bella Mia. Dave joined us and we had a pretty relaxing, delicious dinner. A quick trip to Target and then it was home to get things prepped and get to sleep. Only hours away from the race and I still wasn't very keyed up. Instead Dave and I were sitting around joking about all sorts of stuff and I was feeling extremely loose and relaxed. I even managed to sleep relatively well.
4 am my alarm went off and I got up easily. Thanks to Katie's packing the night before, all I really had to do was eat a small bowl of cereal, go to the bathroom, get dressed, and gather my belongings to get out the door. We were all in Johnny's car and headed to the park around 5am and probably arrived around 5:30. It was drizzling a little but not obnoxiously so. It actually felt a lot like the morning of the Umstead marathon, so I took it as a good sign. I got my Brooks Pureflows on, grabbed my duffel bag and headed up the hill to the start/finish area. It was a pretty crazy scene up there. With 280-some people registered, the start area was extremely crowded with runners and volunteers and crew. I was more than a little overwhelmed and for the first time, feeling some nerves about what I was about to attempt. Instead of trying to digest the magnitude of running 100 miles, I focused on the steps I needed to take to get to the start. I got to the bathroom and applied my A&D ointment (which I FINALLY remembered to thank Dave for giving me that advice, LIFESAVER!), and got my singlet on. I found a spot in the woods to take care of some business. With about three minutes to go I was at the start line, with Johnny and Katie around me. I tied my shoes and then with about 30seconds I worked my way toward the front where I found everyone I expected – Serge, David, Mike, John, and a couple other people I didn't immediately recognize but who looked fast. This was it. I looked around and spent a moment just enjoying the calm before things got started. I switched my headlamp on and heard them count down. GO!
The race
The nice thing about Umstead (or the awful thing depending on your perspective) is that the 100 miler consists of eight 12.5 mile loops, all of it on the bridle trail, except for the half mile or so stretch that runs between race headquarters and the bridle trail that is run at the start and end of every loop. The bridle trail is made up of extremely well packed gravel (I described it to Johnny early in the week as 'NCR trail with some hills') and every step of the course is runnable. Most of the first few miles are flattish, some downhill, some uphill, nothing too intense. There's a brief section from a little after mile 7 to a little after mile 9 that has some short, steepish ups and downs, and that's it. I don't know exactly how much I've run the course but I was certain that no one in the field had run more miles on it than I have in the past few months. While knowing what to expect isn't as important as being in good shape, it definitely was a mental help to know what was coming and when. Doing my first 100 miler, the less surprises, the better as far as I was concerned.
So the race. Yes. We started by running up the park road that led out of camp. Because it was dark I couldn't quite make out who was who but someone I figured correctly to be Morton darted out quickly ahead, followed closely by Serge and John Dennis. I was briefly up there and I know I said something to Dave before he pulled away too. By the time we hit the bridle trail I was probably in 6th and I was also already sick of my hat which I took off and hung on the gate. Another one or two guys went by me on the airport spur out and back. It also started raining a little harder, enough that as I passed the gate, I ran over and got my hat off it and put it back on, this time ON TOP of my headlamp. The next forty or so minutes were pretty uneventful. I got passed by a few more guys. I think by the time I hit mile 3, I was in 8th or 9th. I had no idea how fast I was running; I was wearing my regular old watch because the rain would mess with the garmin (in retrospect, I think this might have been a good thing). All I knew was I was running what felt pretty relaxed (and if I was being honest with myself, maybe a touch faster than planned). I also felt pretty flat which was initially disappointing. My legs didn't feel that peppy, and I felt a little sleepy actually. I decided it wasn't worth worrying about and that when the sun came up I'd probably feel better. As I ran down corkscrew hill, someone I recognized as Jonathan Savage ran by me and as we made our way up the hill on the other side of the bridge, I went by him again. I could say lights waaaaay up ahead already and thought to myself that I should mention to Katie when I got back that somebody was probably gonna crash and burn later.
About 6 miles in, it got light enough to take my headlamp off, FINALLY. I hate that thing. I left it at the aid station just before 7 miles and was off. The first time through the Turkey Creek hills was uneventful. I saw three guys who were waaaay ahead earlier in the loop already starting to come back to me. This whole stretch I was constantly reminding myself NOT to push it on the hills, just relax and take them easy as it was VERY early. By the time I got back out onto Graylyn Road and the lovely mile-ish downhill stretch, I might have gone by another guy. On Graylyn I caught up to another runner who I think was Troy Shellhamer (who I knew had run almost under 16 last year and was probably looking to run even faster this year). We chatted very briefly about how fast some of the guys went out and he mentioned there was some really good runners this year and advised me not to get sucked up in going out too fast with them. It was a good reminder. After that I pulled away a little and continued on. I think the first time I noticed a mile marker was at mile 10 and I noticed I was right around 8:00 pace. Whoa. Not sustainable. BUT! I had exchanged some emails with Ray K about a week earlier and he advised me to go out right about how I was, shoot for a 6:40-7 hour 50 mile split and then try not to die too hard. Maybe not the BEST strategy for someone for their first 100 miler, but I wasn't really interested in trying to 'just finish', I wanted to see how fast I could actually go. I promised myself that I was going to actually race this one. So things were either going to go awesomely, or they were going to get really ugly and be fucking miserable for a long, long time. I didn't want any in between. I didn't want mediocre.
Coming back in at the end of loop one, I felt fine. I had wanted to get done with the first loop and feel like I hadn't really done anything yet and that was pretty much what happened. I had my nutrition plan working (coconut water, honey stinger chews and assorted gels every half hourish, supplement with water and salt at aid stations) so far. I saw a few guys coming out on their second loops as I was coming down the hill at the end of my first. Said hi to Dave who was probably a half mile ahead, and then met Katie and Johnny at the start/finish. I gave them my singlet and hat (both were too wet and would only get wetter and I worried about chafing). By my watch, the first loop took 1:41:47, a little fast but well within reason.
I re-stocked my gels, took a fresh handheld, and was off on number two in seventh place. There were a couple guys pretty close to me on the way in as I was going out. The second lap was fairly uneventful. The sun had come up but it was very overcast and still sort of drizzling. It actually felt really good to me and I kept hoping it would stay like this all day. Around 2 miles in, I came up on 6th place, who I recognized as Darian. He had also run the Triple Lakes 40 miler back in October. We chatted for a few miles before I pulled away around mile 4 (he went on to have a stellar first 100, running 18:25 for 10th place!). And that was really the only excitement for this lap. I couldn't really see anyone else ahead of me, I was still running about the same effort, and was incredibly relaxed and calm. I think it was this lap (or maybe the third) that I saw Jessica, a teacher at my school who also runs and does Ironmans, at the far aid station. That was a nice surprise. As I came back in at the end of the lap, I noticed how much further along the three leaders, Morton, Dennis, and Serge, were, easily already a half hourish up on me. I said hi to Dave in about the same spot as I was coming in. I asked Johnny and Katie to move down to the bottom of the hill so I could tell them what I wanted coming in and grab it going back out. I think after this loop I had some candied ginger. My stomach wasn't bothering me (and thankfully really didn't all day) but I kept taking a couple pieces each lap as a preventative measure. Second lap took 1:40:12, and that wasn't surprising because I had more pep now that it was daylight.
The third lap was my fastest somehow, but again, it was pretty even. I had no interest in trying to chase down the leaders. I was sticking to the plan and it was still very early (which makes me chuckle to write, I had already run a marathon, at essentially the same pace as my very first one four years ago, and it was EARLY). I DID realize a few miles in that I didn't have enough gels to stick to my fueling plan, because I should have taken one when I came in. I didn't really sweat it, just knew I needed to eat something more at the far aid station. I got in and out of that, forcing down some pretzels because it sounded like a good idea, and a banana (so I could tell Katie I was eating solid foods). I tried to stretch the gels and chews I had as far as they'd go on this lap and I relaxed on the hilly section. Despite that taking it easy, I came upon the guy in 4th place (I say 4th because unbeknownst to me, I had passed Dave at the aid station, he had been in the bathroom with stomach issues that unfortunately ended up torpedoing his race). At this point we were starting to encounter runners on their second laps too, but I recognized the guy in the green shorts as having been way ahead earlier. I was actually a little surprised because someone earlier had specifically mentioned that green shorts was fast and I also remembered right near the start hearing him talking with someone else that he was 2nd (?) at Uwharrie 40 this year. As I slowly went by up one of the early steep inclines I had a brief moment where I thought maybe I've actually been running a really stupid race all along because, really, do I have any business being this far up and passing people like that? It was a brief moment, because then I shut myself the hell up and continued on, at what felt almost like dawdling pace.
The rest of the loop was the same as the previous three. I noticed my legs felt eversoslightly heavier or tighter or something, but not alarmingly so. When I came down the hill I quickly told the Katie that I needed more of everything. Double it. I hit my watch at 1:39:29 and headed out again. I chugged a Boost shake here, on Katie's orders. It was a good idea, the calories definitely helped. I set off loaded up with two gels and two bags of honey stinger chews. They informed me that the only three ahead of me were the three leaders. I was incredulous, but didn't bother staying around arguing. Right around 4.5 miles in, I heard footsteps coming quickly. One of the guys I had been seeing fairly close behind every lap had caught up and he was looking really strong. I'd later learn his name was Jim and he was from Albany. He mentioned running together for a little, to break up the monotony. I welcomed it, but also worried that he looked A LOT better and stronger than me right then and I didn't want to burn myself out keeping up. The next few miles to the aid station were pretty pleasant as the conversation was a welcome distraction. I mentioned that it was my first 100 and he had previously done Vermont and when he asked what time I was shooting for I honestly had no idea anymore how to answer. I was nearly 44 miles in and if I kept up the pace, we'd break the previous course record. I was honest and said I figured I'd like to hang on enough to break 15 at this point and he had similar designs. Only about 6 hours in, we had ourselves a long day ahead still.
We got into the aid station together. I started dipping a boiled potato in salt and eating it which seemed like a good idea. He stopped for the bathroom and I continued on, figuring he'd catch up pretty quickly (I was right). We ran together for a good bit of the back section hills before he gradually pulled ahead. I was right that he must have been feeling better than me at that point and it would have been stupid trying to chase him down not even halfway into the race. I came in at just about 1:45 for a 6:46 50 mile split, which is a HALF HOUR PR (unless one counts the 7:00 50ish mile split at the 12 hour, in which case it's only a 14 minute PR). I was really happy that I had managed to perfectly execute Ray K's advice to go out between 6:40-7:00 for the first 50. The second part of that advice was essentially to hold on for dear life and try not to blow up TOO much. I was definitely starting to get a little tired but not as badly as I imagined. Johnny also surprised me by jumping in to pace me here, which was definitely welcome.
Johnny was great to run with. I was quickly starting to not enjoy running. This probably had a lot to do with the rain stopping and the sun actually coming out. Things warmed up quickly and the humidity seemed to linger. My comfort level quickly dropped. He kept reminding me to drink, and made sure I was eating. I wasn't very talkative but that was alright. He also reminded me to relax into the hills, and not get too excited yet. I started cramping some, particularly my calves and some weird tendon-y thing on the front of my ankle (where it connects to the top of my foot). When we came into the aid station I was wondering how far back I had fallen from Jim. But as we left, I ran into him (he had changed from a neon green to a black New Balance singlet) and we ran together a little bit before he again pulled away. I don't recall anything much else extraordinary from this loop except I was starting to wish I could just call it a day after the loop and get credit for a 50 mile finish. Of course, neither Johnny nor Katie would allow that to happen. Neither would I but still, it's nice to know your friends won't let you back out of the stupid thing you started. We came in around 1:46 (~8:32 total), so even though I felt a good deal worse, I had managed not to slow considerably and Johnny deserves a lot of that credit.
Three laps to go. The mental math had started in earnest. If I ran 2:00 laps the rest of the way, I'd still have a 14:32 finish which would be pretty good, and if I slowed even more I could probably hold it together to break 15. Johnny went out with me on the 6th lap too. We had gained on Jim on the back half of the fifth lap, he seemed to be struggling with the heat some too. I noticed as we ran along Reedy Creek trail that we had gained a considerable distance on the guys I assumed were immediately behind me, standings-wise. I also noticed that I hadn't seen Serge or John Dennis as I was coming in from the last lap, wondering if they had slowed some. Morton, however, was continuing to hammer it. As for my lap, there were a few moments where I had to walk and shake out a cramp. Johnny was good about not letting me take too much time, only a few seconds. It was now legit hot out and I was going through A LOT more fluids. Aside from the main aid station before mile 7, there were a few unmanned water stops set up every few miles and I was now stopping to take a cup or two of water there. And I refilled my bottle at least once, possibly twice. I also stopped to pee around mile 3, the third time I had done so during the race. I was happy that while my urine was yellow, it was not dangerously neon or anything. Another buoying thought: while I was definitely gassy, burping and farting quite a bit, my stomach was cooperating and there were no warning signs that I was in imminent bathroom emergency territory. And that was mainly the story of lap 6. At some point I went past Jim (maybe it was at the aid station?) and didn't seem him for the rest of the lap. It was hot and miserable, possibly the least fun of the whole race. The whole time I knew even when I finished, I'd still have almost a marathon left. As we came to the end, Johnny mentioned that he was stopping after this one. Apparently he was feeling kind of off too. If HE'S feeling off after TWO laps, shit, what's gonna happen to me?! was probably a thought I had around then. We finished the lap in 1:54ish, I was in about a minute before Jim but needed a little time at the aid station and then I came back down the hill and saw my cousins and their kids. A big old group there just for me. According to Katie, this was the only time I smiled all race. It's kind of blurry, I just remember coming down the hill and stopping. My cousin Bryan asked me how I was feeling. I replied honestly, "I've felt better." Just a tiny understatement. My 3 year old cousin Greg was holding the bag with the orange slices and I remember grabbing into the bag for some while muttering to myself, out loud, "Fuck, fucking fuck, fuck fuck fucking fuck—" And then an "oh shit" when I realized what I was doing within earshot of my 3 and 6 year old cousins. Someone told me that the only two ahead of me were Morton and Serge, that Dennis had dropped after 5 laps for some reason. That put me in 3rd. On top of that, apparently Serge looked like he was starting to really struggle and I could maybe catch him. What. The. Fuck!? Was this real life? Was all this actually happening? And on that note, I chugged a 5 hour energy and was off again.
I remember immediately thinking to myself that I could now run 10 minute miles and still break 15. And also reminding myself that a 15:30 or so would not be anything to be embarrassed about. The first two miles, the airport spur, took about twenty minutes (including the stop for resupply). It was still hot and miserable and I was not happy. This was definitely the time where I thought to myself how I didn't just never want to run another ultra again, I never wanted to RUN again, period. I just wanted to sit on my ass and do nothing. Jim had put some distance on me again and I was content to just hang on. I came down corkscrew hill and saw Josh and Shannon and maybe said something or maybe just grunted at them at that point. Right after the bridge after mile 4, I saw a group of people, a family, standing by where the trail forks and you could go right over to the lake instead of up the hill that the course goes. They were cheering and then, as I got closer, I recognized the tall blonde guy to be my friend Zane! He had said he was going to come cheer at some point and there he was, with his family in tow. And what's awesomer, he jumped in and started running with me. PERFECT timing. He asked me how I was doing to which I responded flatly, 'bad.' Everything sucked. But we trudged up the incline and he talked and it helped take my mind off things for a bit. n
At the top of the incline the trail levels out and turns right onto Turkey Creek. There was an unmanned water station here, near the water fountains. As we were coming to it, I see a tall, shirtless runner in compression shorts. Christian. Again… what. The. Fuck. All I could manage was, "Christian?!" He looked at me a little downcast and mentioned that Serge was done. That he had never seen someone throw up quite that much. I looked up the trail a few more feet and there was Serge, looking much more miserable than I was feeling. My heart sunk. We were 80+ miles into the race and he was one of the runners I've looked up to, the guy who was a big reason why I was even running the race (with a goal of not letting him lap me) and I was about to go past him. It sucked, and I think I managed to say something that wasn't totally stupid (or maybe it WAS totally stupid, but the intention was good) and Zane and I carried on. We came into the aid station and that's where Zane said he was gonna turn around and run back to his family. I thanked him for getting me through that rough spell. Truth be told, I WAS feeling some better. As I started to leave the aid station, Jim's girlfriend (who if I were giving out crew awards obviously Katie and Johnny would be #1, but she would have to be #2, or even 1b. She was a one woman operation and kept driving back and forth from the start/finish out to the second aid station where you have to hike in all day. That one's a keeper fo sho. I digress) had a granola bar in her hand and looked at me and said, I should just give this to you to give to Jim. I saw him about a hundred meters up ahead and laughed and told her there was no guarantee I'd catch up to him. So we both ran up at him and I told her he's in second place. She argued with me that he's in 3rd but I knew I was right this time. She got him the granola bar and we headed onto the trail together. I told him that we were 2 and 3 now, that I had just passed Serge and he must have too without realizing it. This was officially crazytown in my head. Morton was going to win and break the course record, unless a snake got him or something (and even then I wouldn't bet against him). Everyone else was basically in a race for second place. And by everyone else, I meant Jim and I because it appeared that everyone else had also succumbed to something or other that slowed them down.
Jim pulled ahead on the hills again and I stopped to refill my bottle and walk off another cramp. I was pleased in general that my feet still felt pretty ok. I knew the left little toe had the same blood blister that always occurs after a few hours running. My left ankle was also a little sore but nothing felt broken. I chuckled when I hit 85 miles right about 12 hours. Again. This time though, I HAD to keep running for another 15 miles. I reasoned that even 5 mph would bring me home in 15 hours now, and that thought was slightly mollifying. When I came out to Graylyn Rd, I realized I really had to pee. Rather than stop completely and risk really tightening up this time, I noted that no one else was around so I pulled down the front of my shorts and peed while walking forward. I was actually quite impressed with myself. At that point I also decided that if I had to take a crap, I would just crap my pants and worry about it later. It's amazing how 12 hours of running and a bit of competitive fire can alter your idea of what is acceptable.
I finally finished up the lap in 1:56ish, right about 12:22 on the clock. I was thrilled to meet one of my primary goals – despite the fact that Morton was about to completely obliterate the course record by running a 13:11, he didn't lap me! Looking at the results, it appears Jim and I were the only people who DIDN'T get lapped. Sicknasty. One of my only regrets from the race is not being able to tell Mike how bad ass he was and how inspiring it was to see him out there every loop, hauling ass. It was a good reminder that as bad as I felt running as hard as I was, someone was out there running faster and probably didn't feel all that fantastic either. Digression over, I knew this last lap was make or break. Katie argued with me to take a headlamp. I told her no and stormed off. Jim had left about three minutes before me and really what choice did I have but to try to chase him down for 2nd? Unfortunately the first two miles of the lap were slow again. It was a struggle, a crampy struggle. I just made myself continue moving forward, as slow as necessary, but constantly moving forward. Right after the second mile, things started improving some. I kept muttering to myself, "empty the goddamn tank" and it seemed to be a good reminder.
I kept passing people on earlier laps and some of them would cheer and ask me if this was my last. I honestly didn't have the energy to formulate recognizable words so I would just give thumbs up and grunt. I sincerely hoped my grunting didn't come off as rude or anything, I just couldn't think of words, and if I could, I wasn't able to get them out. 'URRNNGHHH' was about the best I could do. I started making deals with myself, the evil sort I am known to make on training runs – just run to the first water station and you can powerwalk for a minute. Nope, haha, you have to keep running! Just run to the top of the mile 5 hill and then you can back off a moment. HAHA NO! YOU CAN'T! Any sort of downhill or flat I consciously tried to pick up the pace. I couldn't see Jim up ahead and the thought that I could back off and still comfortably come in 3rd and under 15 started tracking across my mind but I had promised to keep the pedal down and that's what I did. I was in and out of the far aid station in maybe 30 seconds, faster than the previous two laps. I hit the back hills as hard as I could, running every step this time, imagining all the miles and miles I ran over this very loop the past few months, all that work was for this day, this moment, there was no make-up race. I went right by the water station this time, my bottle nearing empty but adrenaline had me thinking I was fine to make it to the finish at this point. I grabbed the headlamp I had left there on the first lap. 3.5 miles to go. Out onto Graylyn. I ran that downhill as hard as I could, it felt like an all-out sprint, I was redlining. 2.5 miles to go. I hit the uphill hard too. I knew I just had this and cemetery hill and that short one to the finish left. I turned at the top. Maybe 2 miles to go less. 1.5. Cemetery hill. My mind was almost blank. I had run this very loop dozens and dozens of times and occasionally, the times when I was running it late in the evening, I'd imagine it was the last lap of the race and how that would feel. And here I was, ACTUALLY DOING IT! I crested cemetery hill and knew I HAD to put everything I had left into the final mile. I KNEW I wasn't just going to break 15 hours, I was going to SMASH it. I was going to break 14:30! All the times I tried to imagine what it would be like had failed so miserably it turns out. My mind was just thinking push push PUSHPUSHPUSHGODDAMMITGOPUSHNOWGOOOOOOOOO! I was thinking about Johnny and Katie and how they had been out there all day long and how they'd probably be very happy to see me. I figured I was probably going to come up just short of Jim because if he had ANYTHING left, he was likely doing the same thing I was right now. And I was ok with that. And then I came up on Dave. He was coming in at the end of his sixth loop. He hadn't been having a fun day but I guess seeing me pepped him up some and he started running with me. It was awesome to have someone to push me that last stretch. We were probably running close to 7:00 miles. It felt like I was flying. Finally, the turn off the trail onto the park road. Then into camp. Now it was just a steep downhill and get up the hill to the finish. People were clapping and cheering. I could SEE the red neon of the finish banner through the trees. Bottom of the hill. I yelled Johnny's name because it was dark and I wanted them to know I was the one coming in now. I bounded up those steps. I don't actually remember feeling them at all. I got to the top, only a step or two more. I remember throwing my water bottle down in some surge of emotion. I ran through the finish. 14 hours, 16 minutes, 25 seconds later, I was done. I had finished my first 100 miler. I was 3rd place.
The immediate moments post-race are kind of a surreal dream sequence to me. I know I gave Johnny a big bear hug. And Katie. And Katie got my finisher's buckle for me. I know I wandered over to the aid station and people were asking me what I needed. I think I grabbed a Gatorade. Someone asked what lap I was on. Katie interjected, HE'S DONE! It felt so good to hear that. Holy shit. Then it hit me. I had done it. I had taken my expectations, which were by most accounts on the ambitious side for someone running his first 100 miler, and I had obliterated them. I ambled toward the cabin and then I broke down and sobbed uncontrollably for a few moments. Johnny took a picture of me around this time that I think perfectly captures the moment, hopefully I can get it up here soon. I thanked the two of them profusely Without them, there's no way I would have accomplished what I did.
Going into this race, I kept mentioning that I was more excited to see my friends and be around the race atmosphere. Of course once I got out on the course, I also wanted to do well. Sometimes you put in the hard work and sacrifice and suffer and still something happens and you have a bad race. And other times, everything, EVERYTHING comes together and you run one of the best races of your life. I was very fortunate that at Umstead, for my first 100 mile race, the latter happened. This recap is entirely too long as it is, so I will cut it here, at the end of my race; a logical place as any for stopping. I have a bunch more thoughts on everything, and pictures, and random musings as I am want to ramble about. I'll get to all that later, separately. I'm still sort of decompressing and recovering and getting my mind around things.
Til next time… RUN HAPPY everyone!
The end of the week (and potentially a rant about mud and other muck)
Last time I wrote, I had just the one run in the books for last week (albeit a solid one). I ended up with a decent week.
Thu – 5 miles, 42:30 around my cousins' neighborhood, super buggy, kind of muggy
Fri – 9 miles, let's say 69 minutes on the greenway to Umstead and back, legs felt so good I had to really reign it in, even did five 30s strides in the last mile
Sat – am: 3 miles slow with a co-worker at the Great Human Race in Durham//pm: 13 miles, 1:48, up the greenway to Umstead, got caught in a thunderstorm
Sun – 15 miles, 2:02 at Umstead from Old Reedy Creek, same run as Wednesday but slower course loop (1:41ish), legs felt really freaking good, threw in a pick-up or two when I felt like it
Total for week — 60 miles, about 8 hours
The week before I ran Stone Cat, I ran 64 miles. Of course, back then 64 miles was not nearly as drastic a taper as it is now. And I just looked back through my log at the actual runs I did. I had a pretty crappy race at Stone Cat and I know there are a lot of factors that go into the success or failure on any given day but maybe I could learn something from the end game last year. For one thing I was running hard a lot. I remember thinking that I was supposed to taper off volume, not intensity. But I think I ratcheted UP the intensity instead, which may have been why I was so shot after only 25 miles in the race. Who knows. All I know is that this time, I barely feel like I ran at all last week.
I saw John again Friday night. I also took my brother who has been suffering from IT band issues. Saturday when I went running my legs felt as close to 100% as they've felt in a long time. Yesterday was even better. This week is all about not doing anything stupid, which should seem obvious but I know me well enough to know this is going to take a lot of mental focus. I will not be doing a whole lot of running, obviously. Just enough to keep my legs remembering what running is and so that I don't start on Saturday and need an hour or two to shake off the rust. Like I mentioned before, I'm not nearly as anxious or nervous about it, I'm also not as keyed up. I was actually chastised yesterday on the phone with my mom for not sounding more excited and enthusiastic about it all. I'm more excited for the people coming here, really. By the time Saturday morning rolls around, I know my legs will be fresh and ready and I will run as hard as I can for 100 miles and whatever that ends up being, fantastic.
Now a rant! Friday as I was running along the airport spur at Umstead, a woman on a mountain bike passed me, then turned around and asked, "have you ever done a Tough Mudder?" At first I didn't respond because it was so out of the blue but a quick look around revealed I was the only other human anywhere in sight. So I said no. But she wasn't done! She replied, matter of factly, "Don't worry, there's one up here in October." Then she rode off and that was the end of it. What. The. Fuck? Ummmm, thanks? Clearly, I was really concerned that I had missed my chance. I spent the next mile or so pondering whether maybe I look like the type of guy who would do a mud run. That seemed to be the theme of the weekend too. My cousin and his neighbor were doing one in Charlotte Saturday morning. And then an old friend I hadn't seen in a few years stopped on her way from NY to SC and hung out Saturday night. We went to Bella Mia, because it's my favorite restaurant down here and that's where I like to take all my visitors. It came up that I was running the 100 miler in a week. My friend is an OT and so she immediately asked how my joints are holding up, and telling me horror stories about the runners she's seen. It's a similar conversation I've had with people I haven't seen in a while or who I just met when they find out what I like to do. The whole HOW do you do that, what do you think about, do you listen to music, you're probably going to get injured. When we picked up my brother's friend, who is about to become a PT, the questions about the prospects of me eventually getting injured continued.
Relating back to mud runs, my friend also asked me if I had ever done a Tough Mudder. She went on to say that if running is not enough of a challenge anymore, "and it seems like it's getting to that point," I should try that. And it was there that I really grasped the disconnect. People seem to assume that I've gravitated to ultras and run so much because I want the biggest challenge. While it's certainly accurate to say I like to push my limits and challenge myself, I am by no means bored with running. I am a runner. I am not really much of an athlete (I recently went 0 for 5 in a students vs staff basketball game at my school). I am not a Navy SEAL and don't aspire to be. I no longer care how much I can bench press or how big my biceps are. While many people find the idea of running for nearly an entire day in the woods akin to torture, I actually LOOK FORWARD to the prospect. I am a runner. I like to RUN, not crawl under barbed wire or leap through fire or any of that stuff. I don't begrudge or judge anyone THEIR enjoyment of it, but to me it holds zero appeal. My friend mentioned that she had a friend who did something called the World's Toughest Mudder which was apparently some sort of 24 hour death march in NJ in the winter where people lost toes and were hospitalized and almost no one finished. If I wanted to suffer like that, I'd find a way to enter the Barkley Marathons (which one day I think I'd like to, actually). I think part of my problem is the commercialization of those sorts of races (Tough Mudders, Warrior Dash, Spartan Race, etc etc). They seem to be about cramming the maximum number of people into a space, with waves that go all day. And clusterfucks for parking. Money money money, kind of like how I feel about Rock n Roll races. I gravitate to ultras and trail races and low key local races like the BRRC puts on because the atmosphere jives with my temperament. And it's not contrived, the trails are what they are, and usually they're plenty tough on their own. So dear everyone, please stop asking about this. I don't care about mud runs. I did a mud run already. It was called the Umstead Trail marathon.
Of course the other question was my opinion on Vibrams and other barefoot running things. I really should just print copies of the Hanson's take on this I read a few years ago, it would save me some time. I've started just telling people I can't wear them because I have webbed toes, but I might start making up more elaborate lies (the webbed toes thing is true though). I don't mind talking about this subject as much as the previous one though, because I HAVE experience on both ends of the extreme and it's at least a relevant running related discussion. As I'm writing, I realize I was pretty grouchy and got progressively grouchier as the weekend wore on. By the time we got home from the bowling alley at like 2 am Sunday morning, I was ready for everyone to leave and give me some time to be alone and not have to wear clothes in the apartment and not have to go out til much later than I want to and not have to be conversational and all that. I was probably mostly just tired.
And that's probably enough for now. I'm gonna have a lot of time this week to think and that's always a little dangerous. Thursday night cannot come soon enough.
Til next time, RUN HAPPY everyone!
Not really a recap (or, some words that talk about running-type things in a sorta-chronological manner)
It's been a little while. I didn't recap the last week or so because there wasn't much to recap; at least relative to the previous month or two. I suppose this is what should be referred to as a taper. Not that I've ever tapered for a 100 mile race. I don't think I did that good a job tapering for the 50 last year and that was my last 'A' race (and one of my shittier performances from the whole year) and I still don't really know what I'm doing. I know how to do work and grind week after week but when it comes to the end game, I'm pretty clueless. Luckily there are some (a lot) of people smarter than me and I've tried to glean some wisdom from them, but I've probably unintentionally ignored quite a bit of good advice in the process. In continuing the theme of putting more importance on enjoying myself (because running is one of the only things I can actually FIND enjoyment in lately) I went ahead and ran for 12 hours just three weeks before the Umstead. Was it too much? Probably. I wasn't exactly running hard, and I spent about an hour of that time span in the bathroom (at least it felt like about an hour). It wouldn't have been too bad (TOO bad) were it not for the twenty-some hours of driving that went along with it in the two and a half day span that included the 12 hours of running. Covering 84.5 miles was a good confidence boost that I'll be able to at least finish 100 miles but my legs felt like garbage last week.
Fortunately John worked me over last Friday and I all the aches and troubling pains subsided enough that I had two decent runs last weekend. First was 22 miles at Umstead included 2xTurkey Creek loop. The next was the Tobacco Road half, sort of. You won't find me in the results. But I just happened to also be running 13.1 miles starting and finishing at the USA Baseball complex and spending a couple miles on the ATT. I had a bib on too. Go figure. My legs were pretty shot from the longish Umstead run about 12 hours earlier, and I went out hard intending to crash and burn. I got my wish; I felt like crap from miles 8-12. For some reason the last mile went better again, weird. Still, running a 1:25 like that made for a good workout. 51 miles for the week, lots of extra free time.
This week has been junk too. I spent Monday on the recliner watching the entire first season of The Walking Dead and it was awesome. Tuesday managed to top it somehow (well not somehow, in this case awesome company, good beer, ticken chacos, and bar trivia top getting drunk at home watching great television and eating a burrito). Wednesday I got back to it, running an Umstead course loop, possibly the last time I do that in full before the race. I was a little pressed for time because I had to pick Scott up from the airport, operating on less than 3 hours sleep, and probably dehydrated. Still, the plan was to jog easy to the airport turnaround, run a full course loop hardish, and jog easy back to the car. Result? A single loop PR (1:27ish). Not sure how I ran faster than that for a full marathon though, except that I probably ran Manz miles here still.
This weekend, Scott's still in town and now there are only eight days til race day. Running will be limited, and I think it should be and I'll have enough distractions to ensure I don't do something dumb like run hills for four hours Sunday morning. I'm pretty excited about next weekend, but in a way that hasn't put a whole lot of stress on me unlike last November before Stone Cat. Back then, I had made it a very singular goal that would basically decide whether the entire year was a success or a failure (in my mind at least). Right now, I care, and of course I want to do well, but ultimately I'm just looking forward to seeing some really good friends and some really fast people who I've admired a while. It's March and I have a long year still ahead of me so whatever happens next Saturday, it won't swing the needle a whole lot in either direction. It's not apathy, it's perspective. Or something. At least I AM sure that I still have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm kinda starting to like it that way.
Til next time, RUN HAPPY everyone!
Weekly-ish recap
So it's the middle of a new week and at this point seems kinda pointless to write a weekly recap, except for the sake of regularity. I obviously already wrote waaaaaay too much about Saturday's race so I can gloss over that and I think I'll just throw in a bonus recap of how this week has gone so far (spoiler alert: pretty ok)
Mon – am: 4 miles, 37:15, Duke XC//pm: sleep from 5:30p – 6:15a Tuesday morning, A NEW PR!
Tue – am: nothing//pm: 29 miles, 4:06, BCG to Umstead w/2 x Turkey Creek loop and 7 x super steep hill on greenway on way back
Wed – am: 4 miles, 38 min, Duke XC, drizzle//pm: 21 miles, 3 hours, Duke XC, five 4+ mi loops w/extensions, water after each
Thu – am: 3 miles, 29:30 Duke XC//pm: 14 miles total incl. 5 x mile (5:55, 5:50, 5:48, 5:43, 5:38), 400 slow jog after each, 800 recovery after set then 4×200 (35, 36, 34, 34), 200 jog
Fri – am: 5 miles, 43 minutes, Duke XC//pm: random stationary recumbent biking and foam rolling
Sat - am: 34 miles total incl Umstead Marathon (3:00:36), 2.5 up, 5.5 after, slowish
Sun – am: 16 miles, 2:45, Umstead; first 6ish w/Alicia Parr (who was the Umstead women's champion!) on Loblolly trail, last 10 miles solo on Company Mill and bridle trails//pm: random splashing around in pool
Total for week — 130 miles again, about 17.5 hours
Mon – am: 3 miles, 29 minutes, Duke XC, legs feeling better//pm: 15 miles, 2:08, Duke XC, three 4+ mi loops and one 3 mile loop
Tue – am: 4 miles, 38 minutes, Duke XC, legs normal again//pm: 15 miles, 2:17, Umstead, did a course loop+ with Kara B who was thinking about pacing a friend at the 100 and wanted to experience the course first, legs felt great
Wed – am: 8 miles, 68 minutes, Duke XC, 2 loops, beautiful morning, legs feel fantastic
So far — 45 miles, 175 miles and about 24 hours of running since last recap.
Tonight I'm gonna get back to the gym and do my weekly squats which I've missed the past two weeks (sorry Katie!) and then go to the Fullsteam Run (which I've also missed for the past month or so) wherein I'll try to find some guys who are feeling spry (there always seems to be a couple people at the Fullsteam run who are looking to push the pace) and do another half-assed workout, something in the neighborhood of 25-26 minutes for 4 miles with a few before and after.
I'm really pleased that my legs feel completely recovered from Saturday's effort already. That's the cool thing about running "shorter" races (and I say that fully aware that most people don't consider a marathon short by any stretch) — the recovery is pretty short. I was trying to explain it to Kara last night, the different feeling after that sort of effort vs. the 44 miler I ran two weeks ago. The Sunday run after the marathon felt heavy, like I had done max effort squats the day before. The day or so after the longer efforts, it's not so much heavy as just tired, like I'd done a bajillion air squats instead. The key to recovering from either, I think, is sitting on my ass most of the rest of the day on Sunday watching sports and eating whatever. I finally talked to my parents about the race and we laughed because now when my mom hears I ran a marathon, she thinks, "So? You do that every week." Which is essentially true.
I've got a little more than three weeks to go before the 100 miler. This is my last higher volume week, after this I'll start to taper off. Kara was asking me some questions about training on our run last night and the main recurrent theme is that I really have almost no idea what I'm doing. I've never done anything like this before, I don't have a coach to bounce ideas off of (and can't exactly afford one), Jess just tells me I'm crazy now, I just go out and run, kind of a lot. There is the minimum of structure but really I'm just doing whatever. But more importantly than knowing what I'm doing… I'm having FUN doing it. A lot of fun. I can't remember the last time I looked forward to going out for a run almost every single day like I do now. A lot of that probably has to do with the weather, and the places I'm running, but still, it's a new feeling for me and the results are hard to argue with right now. If it ain't broke, right?
Til next time… RUN HAPPY everyone!


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Lauren Tannehill — as we predicted — stole the show on HBO's Hard Knocks last night. It took
an eternity nine minutes of airtime before the first appearance of Dolphins quarterback of the future Ryan Tannehill's wife, and she wasn't on all that much, but the fact that she was on, and wasn't dumb or mean, made fantasizing viewers quite happy.
To be fair to all three competitors in the Dolphins' wide-open quarterback competition, however, we must note that fellow throwers David Garrard and Matt Moore showed that they've done all right for themselves, too. Oh, and also add basketball-player-turned-accountant-turned-football-player Les Brown to that list.
But Tannehill wins, and people freaked out when they saw her. Here's a collection of Twitter reactions to her appearance. There was:
The cordial:
@laurentannehill If you have a twin sister I would love to take her out
— Robbie Meade III (@RobbieMeade22) August 1, 2012
The creepily honest:
Lauren Tannehill. Just wow.
#HardCocks I mean #HardKnocks
— Eric Centinaro (@E_Legacy) August 8, 2012
The witty:
I've been saying this since the draft. "
@swaggerjack: Lauren Tannehill's the only blue chipper the Miami Dolphins got"
— Heisenberg (@WestCoastAR) August 8, 2012
I'd let Lauren Tannehill fart in my mouth
— The Muni-Lot Maniac (@dawgpoundTED) August 8, 2012
The unique and confident:
Lauren Tannehill is nothing. Pretty girl but give me a cute, dark skinned, dark haired, dark eyed Latin women. Thanks.¯\_(ツ)_/¯ just sayin
— Nicholas Dante Spano (@NickSpano) August 8, 2012
The jealous:
I'm not sure what Lauren Tannehill is doing with Ryan Tannehill. Somebody tell her that I'm the #1 pick.
— Andrew's Head (@AndrewLucksHead) August 8, 2012
The genius:
Hard Knocks should just be Chad Johnson doing play by play on Lauren Tannehill's daily errands.
— fcardillo3 (@fcardillo3) August 8, 2012
And a whole lot of this:
lauren tannehill MMMM DAMN
— john banger (@kingjohntrill) August 8, 2012
But a Lauren Tannehill post can't end on that note. We give the people what they want. And that means… slideshow time!
- Danica Patrick Says She's Sick of Being Sexy
- So What Does Bill Belichick Think About Weed?
- Deion Sanders: Johnny Manziel Has 'Ghetto Tendencies'
- The Top 10 Worst Yankee Contracts

subset: commoncrawl


text:
SOCHI SCENE: On to PyeongChang
SOCHI SCENE: On to PyeongChang
SOCHI SCENE: 'We leave as friends'
SOCHI SCENE: 'We leave as friends'
IOC confident in success of anti-doping program
After few Sochi Olympics athletes test positive, IOC's Bach says its anti-doping program works
Bach hails 'amazing' transformation of Sochi
Bach: Sochi underwent 'amazing' transformation from rundown resort to successful Olympic host
Shiffrin, Miller make Sochi skiing 1 for the ages
One for the ages: Shiffrin, Miller, Matt set Olympic Alpine records for young, old medalists
SOCHI SCENE: Stalin's Dacha
SOCHI SCENE: Stalin's Dacha
Legkov leads Russian sweep of 50K race at Olympics
Legkov leads Russian sweep of podium in men's 50K cross-country race at Sochi Olympics
CAS dismisses men's skicross appeal against France
Top sports court dismisses skicross appeal by Canada and Slovenia against France at Olympics
Russia clinches medals title
Russian sweep in cross-country clinches medals title for host nation
Bjoerndalen's farewell highlights Olympic biathlon
Ole Einar Bjoerndalen's golden farewell, Ukraine victory highlight biathlon at Sochi Olympics
SOCHI SCENE: Crosby's goal up close
SOCHI SCENE: Crosby's goal up close
5 things to know about the Sochi Olympics
5 things to know about the Sochi Olympics
SOCHI SCENE: Price's saves
SOCHI SCENE: Price's saves
Speedskating at Sochi: it's all about the Dutch
Dominant Dutch: The Orange turn speedskating into one-country race at Sochi Olympics
SOCHI SCENE: Ho-hum gold game?
SOCHI SCENE: Ho-hum gold game?
Far from Sochi, North Koreans hone skiing skills
Far from Sochi, North Koreans hone skiing skills, Olympic ambitions at lavish new ski resort
Big Air a likely next step at Olympics
After a successful debut of new Olympic action sports, could Big Air be next?
Matt, 34, wins Olympic slalom; oldest Alpine champ
On slalom course 1 racer called 'borderline unsportsmanlike,' Matt becomes oldest Alpine champ
US hockey finishes with a real flop
At least Americans didn't take their disappointment out on any furniture this time
Russia's Zubkov takes slim lead in Olympic 4-man
Russia's Alexander Zubkov takes narrow lead after 2 runs of Olympic 4-man bobsled, Holcomb 4th
Hi: 59 °F | Lo: 47 °F


text:
♥ My Deviantart
♥ My Main
Hmmmmm A possible outcome if 1.) allowed.. and 2.) if it comes to that.
Her bangs are just shoved to the side btw, so it would look like nothing is different if her bangs were in their proper place.
Not gonna upload this to dA unless it becomes a legit thing.


text:
Just something they threw together in the heat of the moment
One Direction having a dance off with Alan Carr has become as standard as Simon Cowell wearing a deep-v, Niall Horan having a Nandos, or Tulisa reminding us to "keep it real."
The boys are on Alan Carr's Chattyman tonight (Channel 4, 10pm), where they bust out what is perhaps their greatest dance off yet.
Rather than whip out their individual moves in an attack of the thrusting and lightbulb-screwing, One Direction go for a co-ordinated group number, ambushing Alan with an onslaught of style and swagger, five times as powerful as before.
If you can face it, click next to to see who won, and to see pics of the boys' reaction.


text:
Harvard Business School's Rebecca M. Henderson and Karthik Ramanna argue that company managers have a moral obligation to preserve capitalism in this story from HBS Working Knowledge.
Most of us tend not to think of capitalism as a moral system. The prevailing view of the free market, among laypeople and economists alike, is that it's one step removed from the law of the jungle. But the fact is that capitalism has always had an explicit moral framework that runs as a thread through the writings of Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, and Friedrich Hayek among other foundational thinkers.
"Many economists think of it as a positivist system that does not impose morality upon society, but this is not the case," says Harvard Business School Associate Professor Karthik Ramanna, who holds appointments as the Henry B. Arthur Fellow, supporting the research and teaching of business ethics, and as a Marvin Bower Fellow, helping faculty launch innovative new business agendas. "Capitalism delivers on certain normative goals such as individual freedom and a fairness of opportunity that are essential to legitimizing that deployment of self-interest."
In other words, capitalism earns its legitimacy through the idea that the pursuit of self-interest explicitly delivers on certain moral goods for society. Individuals could criticize that moral framework—a Marxist, for instance, might argue that capitalism ignores issues of fairness in outcomes—but they can't say that it doesn't exist.
Capitalism's moral logic was perhaps most famously articulated by free market champion Milton Friedman when he said that "the social responsibility of business…is to increase its profits." That sentiment puts faith in the market to distribute wealth in the freest, fairest and most efficient way possible—indeed, Friedman went further to say that any attempt to curb the free market was harmful to the good of society.
This is the view Ramanna grapples with in a new working paper, Managers and Market Capitalism, co-written with Rebecca M. Henderson, the John and Natty McArthur University Professor. Henderson and Ramanna agree with Friedman's moral framework—but only when certain conditions are met. In many cases, they say, it is incumbent upon managers to shift their ethical framework in order to preserve the system of capitalism itself.
In their view, capitalism has two powerful things going for it. First, it has been shown to be incredibly effective in leading to economic growth. "We don't know any better way to solve this problem," argues Ramanna. "If you look around the world, capitalism has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty where previously deployed systems did not."
Second, capitalism tends to be self-correcting. When the free market does fail, the market itself steps in to correct the problem. For example, when investors lack information to properly determine the value of a stock, a raft of institutions—including ratings agencies, analysts, auditors, and accounting standards—rush in to fill that gap. Even in cases where a certain company dominates a market to create a near monopoly, entrepreneurs can find competitive advantages to create new opportunities—think IBM IBM and Apple Apple, United Airlines and Southwest, or Myspace and Facebook Facebook. "Markets make markets work," says Ramanna. "That is the good news about capitalism. We don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water."
But that doesn't mean markets always work to self-correct structural problems. The snag, as Adam Smith first identified in The Wealth of Nations, is that free markets require certain conditions in order to function—among them, well-defined property rights, enforceable contracts, non-collusion between parties, and complete knowledge that puts everyone on a level playing field. And while some of these conditions are self-fulfilling in markets, they argue, some are not. Take accounting standards, for example. While it's essential from a standpoint of complete knowledge to have everyone calculating their financials in a comparable and consistent manner, there is no profit motive for a private institution to produce accounting standards. Some public intervention is necessary—and that public intervention manifests itself as institutions operate not through a competitive market process, but through a democratic political process.
Therein lies the rub. Once the market is open to politics, then that market can be corrupted. That is especially true in cases Ramanna and Henderson call "thin political markets," that is, when business interests possess a specialized knowledge unknown to other constituents in the process and face little political opposition. That stands in contrast to a "thick" political process, in which diverse views are able to provide input with no one party able to receive a special voice.
"As the chairman of Goldman Sachs or Citigroup or IBM, you have a substantial capacity to structure the rules of the game when it comes to accounting standards for your industry," says Ramanna, noting that in the case of accounting standards, the knowledge is so esoteric that it only resides in a few individuals, who are most likely embedded in corporations. "If you happen to engage in a political process that structures institutions that underlie capitalism, what are your obligations?"
The traditional free-market answer to that question is that your obligation is to increase profits for your shareholders, period. If that means undermining accounting standards in order to achieve short-term gains, then the traditional free-market logic would say you are not only entitled, but also obligated to do that.
Not so fast, say Henderson and Ramanna. They argue managers have another interest, not just to serve as agents for their shareholders, but also to serve as agents for the system as a whole. It is not in the long-term interest of a society that deploys capitalism to allow its corporate managers to set up an accounting system that distorts the market—potentially leading to corporate scandals or an economic crash—and undermines capitalism itself. Rather, in these "thin" political processes where self-interest can undermine the integrity of capitalism, a manager's moral obligation is put aside his or her own self-interest in order to preserve the interests of the system as a whole.
Of course, that's not an easy sell to someone in a highly competitive market trained to exploit any advantage. This is where norm-setting becomes important, the authors say. Ramanna points to norms that have shifted in the history of capitalism, not necessarily in a company's self-interest. "We have been able to shift the moral boundary of self-interested corporate behavior when it comes to employing child labor and indentured labor," he says. "Part of this norm-shifting was done by carefully laying out the evidence and then building a strong logical case for what is consistent with the ethical imperatives that legitimize capitalism. CEOs are usually not immoral people. When they lobby for self-serving accounting rules, they are acting in the context of an ethical framework that legitimizes self-interested behavior.
Our challenge is to provide evidence and arguments for why the 'self-interest' ethical framework does not hold water in the case of 'thin political markets,'" he continues. "In this sense, our task is not to take immoral people and make them moral; it is to add texture to the dominant ethical framework of the markets, which defines what is moral."
The next step in that goal, says Ramanna, is to determine what institutions might be necessary to shift the ethical consensus. He and Henderson have begun to look at increased disclosure on corporate accountability—particularly as it relates to lobbying—as one possible way to fill the information gap. Further, some industry groups have begun to push a concept called "ethical lobbying," in which they take on only clients that agree to broaden their focus to consider systemic interests beyond self-interest, a trend that Ramanna and Henderson think has potential to help change the prevailing mindset.
"Ethical norms don't shift in an instant; these are the kinds of shifts that take place over a generation," says Ramanna. "But if enough CEOs and lobbyists get together and say there is something not quite right about what we are doing, then we may be able to start changing norms."
About the author
Boston-based writer Michael Blanding is author of The Coke Machine: The Dirty Truth Behind the World's Favorite Soft Drink.


text:
Now's your chance to read up on all of the New 52 Justice League members. I actually REALLY LOVED that first arc of Aquaman and if you haven't read the Court of Owls arc in Batman then you realllllly need to fix that asap.
Get all of the following collections for just $5.99 each:
Justice League vol. 1: Origin
Justice League Dark vol. 1: In The Dark
Superman - Action Comics vol. 1: Superman and the Men of Steel
Batman vol. 1: Court of Owls
Wonder Woman vol. 1: Blood
The Flash vol. 1: Move Forward
Aquaman vol. 1: The Trench
Green Arrow vol. 1: The Midas Touch
Shazam! vol. 1
Geen Lantern vol. 1: Sinestro
Which of these would you recommend?
Friends, we'd never let you down.
Especially if you were looking for something new to read. Or even if you were #newtocomics and stumbled upon this rad Tumblr page.
A new strain of vampire has emerged—much more vicious than the traditional variety. Scott Snyder and Stephen King set fire to the horror genre with a visionary, all-original take on one of the most popular monster stories, as they trace the creatures' bloodline through decades of American history!
American Vampire for 99c a pop go go go go go now now now.
Locke & Key Vol. 1: Welcome To Lovecraft by Joe Hill (joehillsthrills) and Gabriel Rodriguez is on sale for just $5.99 right now. A perfect book to give to your friend who is #NewToComics
And while you're at it check out all the other books that are on sale as part of our IDW 15th Anniversary Sale!
fan art!
a combo of two of my favorite comics, Prophet and Adventure Time. y'all should read those things. top quality things.
This picture is perfect since we've got a super rad Adventure Time sale going on right now and on Facebook we asked what people think is the best sci-fi title for people who are #NewToComics My pick is Prophet by the awesome royalboiler, if you didn't get that. Which you can check out right here: http://cmxl.gy/pr0ph3t
Right now we have this crazy massive Dynamite sale celebrating their 10th anniversary and that means you can get every issue gailsimone's amazing Red Sonja (along with over 1500 other comics) for 50% off when you use the code DYNAMITE on our webstore!
Perfect for someone who is #NewToComics
Trying to convince that special someone to try out comics? Facebookbuddy Vince recommends Chew, Saga, and the upcoming Ms. Marvel (debuts tomorrow)!
#missionaccomplished indeed, Vince! Mission. Accomplished.


text: Closeout 66% off Quick View Fly Racing Womens Georgia Jacket - 2012 $49.99 You save $99.96 (66%) (36) Fly Racing Women's Georgia Jacket - 2012 Sweet as a peach. That's how best to described the Fly Racing Women's Georgia Jacket. Designed with women riders in mind, the Georgia is tailored to fit a smaller more curvaceous frame while offering the same level protection as the men's line.… Compare VIDEO Womens Motorcycle Jackets


text:
carved Black Knight Cameo Vintage/Antique Ring 10K Gold
Sold For:
or Sign In to see what it's worth.
Click here to upgrade your account
Sold Date: 02/27/2011
Channel: Online Auction
Source: eBay
Category: Jewelry
This is a vintage 10K yellow gold ring with a carved black cameo stone.The cameo is of a knight's head (reminds me of Don Quixote).
The ring is marked 10K inside (hard to see in the photo).The ring setting is a little bent on the side (see arrows). Even though the setting is bent the stone is not loose. The stone is about 11/16 inch long by 5/16 inch wide.
Total Weight 2.5 g or 1.6 dwtThe ring size looks to be about a 5
Vintage as-found condition; might need some cleaning/polishing and have some normal age ware.Because my items are vintage/used they may have some signs of use/wear and/or be in need of some cleaning or polishing. I have not tried to clean or do anything to the pieces. NO RESERVE!!
Please read my auction terms before bidding.....The shipping/hand for this item is $3.00 Will ship to United States ONLY. Payment should be received within 3 days from the end of auction date. If you live in PA please add 6% sales tax to the cost of this item. Vintage items are sold as-is as-found. Please ask questions before bidding and I will do my best to answer them. THANK YOU FOR LOOKING! I reserve the right to cancel bids from buyers with PRIVATE feedback or what I feel is a poor feedback score. Because of eBay's new feedback rules I reserve the right to NOT SELL to buyers with PRIVATE feedback even if they are the high bidder at the end of the auction. NOTE FROM EBAY: If a spam filter prevents messages from eBay or its members from reaching an account, the account is considered to have an invalid email address. Members need to take steps to ensure their account is valid and working. Return policy: Vintage items are sold as-is, as-found, No returns/all sales are final. I do my best to describe & photograph the items but please do ask any needed questions before bidding. I do not profess to be perfect or an expert. If I make a gross error in the listing a return will be considered but will not include the shipping costs.
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text:
Related Photo Galleries
Bearing up: To run huge lift and duration numbers, stronger and wider cam cores are needed to maintain rigidity—reduced base circles don't cut it at this level. Original big-block Chevys had 2.14-inch, babbit-style cam bearings. Sonny's giant cams ride in 75mm (2.95-inch) roller bearings.
© Hotrod.com
TEN: The Enthusiast Network
All rights reserved. HAWWBIIS26


text:
Add a special twist to your decor with this contemporary wall mirror.
This intriguing wall mirror design impresses with distinctive styling. It features a bright silver leaf finish with a bold, twisted design. This attractive mirror will make a stylish statement in any setting.
Our associates are standing by to assist you.


text:
Senior Project Manager
We have a Contract position for "Senior Project Manager" with one of our direct clients in Atlanta, Georgia for initial contract duration of 5+ months. No third party candidates considered for this position. US citizens and all those authorized to work in the US are ...
Oct 25 -
Systems Administrator I
We have a Contract position for "Systems Administrator I" with one of our direct clients in Atlanta, Georgia for initial contract duration of 7+ months.
Job Description:
Installs, configures, and supports a local area network, wide area network, internet system, computers ...
SQL Server Developer
We have a Contract position for "SQL Server Developer" with one of our direct clients in Alpharetta, Georgia for initial contract duration of 9+ months.
Job Description:
5-8 years' experience developing enterprise level database solutions. SQL Server Developer with SQL ...
Oct 25 -
Enterprise Software Implementation Manager / to $80K + bonus
Enterprise Software Implementation Manager
Enterprise Software Company - leader in vertical
$70K - $80K + bonus, full benefits package
80% travel to client sites, 20% telecommute
National enterprise software development company seeking project manager to lead ...
Marketing Rep Fulltime Salary Bonus Benefits
Large major international computer manufacturer is looking to hire a marketing rep to support company's software and hardware products,
This is a full-time position ie salary benefits bonus
Salary range is 56k to 75k doe ie depend upon exp
Oct 24 -
Solutions Architect, Business Intelligence & Data Integration
Posting Title: Business Intelligence & Data Integration, Solutions Architect
Location: National (United States)
Current Need:
The successful candidate will have experience leading successful business intelligence, data integration, and data quality implementations within ...
Managing Director
Current Need:
The successful candidate will have direct P&L experience with a proven track record of growing a business from seed to exit. The selected candidate will have experience implementing strategic goals and objectives for enterprise and mid-sized organizations. ...
WebFOCUS Developer / Software Engineer
Current Need:
This is an outstanding WebFOCUS Business Intelligence opportunity! The selected candidate for will design, develop, deploy and maintain applications, and may be required to perform data modeling and problem resolution analysis. Selected candidate will design ...
Seeking ArcSight Consultants - Hiring Nationally-Top Pay
IT Security SIEM Consultants - Hiring Nationally
65% Travel / Work Remote from Home!
ArcSight Consultant are responsible for pre and post-sales product and service implementation, completing assigned projects in a manner consistent with the team's standard, emphasizes ...
Customer Service Representative (Bilingual English/Spanish)
Bilingual Representative in Spanish and English.
Medicaid/Medical billing experience preferred.
This is an onsite position, no remote work.
Responsibilities: Provide professional solutions to hp end-users, dealers and service providers originating from unresolved ...
Oct 24 -
Sr. IT Quality Assurance 10717
Job Responsibilities
- Plan, develop, execute manual & automated testing scripts, and manage test data throughout the entire SDLC as appropriate to validate and measure quality.
- Track, report, and review test results for the product's compliance to the design and ...
Oct 24 -
Senior SharePoint Server Administrator
We have a Contract position for "Senior SharePoint Server Administrator" with one of our direct clients in Atlanta, Georgia for initial contract duration of 7+ months.
Job Description:
Client is seeking a Senior SharePoint Server Administrator to manage the SharePoint ...
Database Administrator DBA
Database Administrator with SQL – Financial Services Industry
Contract position - W-2 or Corp to Corp - $70-$80/hr. long term contract
The Database Administrator will work closely with the Vice President of IT and senior managers. The Database Administrator will unify ...
.NET Developers
.NET Developers
(1- Senior level, 3- Mid level and 2- Jr level) = 6 spots TOTAL!!!
Salary Range is $65,000 to $105,000 - DOE (could go higher for right candidate)
Kennesaw/Acworth, GA area (Northwest Atlanta)
**Sr .NET Developers- $90-105K - 5-7 plus years of ...
Oct 24 -
Security Operations Center (SOC) Analyst
Security Operations Center (SOC) Analyst - 3 positions
Top Pay plus bonus and great benefits
This position will be the second Shift 2 PM to 10 PM (could move to day shift if the candidates desires after 90 days)
The Sr. SOC Analyst will work collaboratively to detect ...
.NET MVC HTML5 developer 47551 GA
Req ID: 47551
Closing Date: 10/28/2014
Hours: 8:00am - 5:00pm
Category: .NET MVC HTML5 developer
Estimated Duration: 10/31/2014 - 06/30/2015
Job Description:
Accountable for the design, development, and unit testing of the next generation .NET, MVC and HTML5 ...
Account Manager
Summary: The Account Manager is responsible for managing existing client relationships at both tactical and strategic levels and ensuring that the team is providing the overall service delivery results expected by the client.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
Data ...
System Engineer
~~Job Title: System Engineer
Department: Service and Support Reports to: Operations Manager
The System Engineer is a strategic technical position within the organization. This position is responsible for maintaining the design and integrity of customer's ...
Data Modeler - Teradata Experience
Data Modeler/Architect would be responsible for all data model activities in a newly formed Marketing Technology group. Candidate should have the following qualifications:
Demonstrated experience working as a data modeler in a Teradata environment
Proficient knowledge ...
Mobile Application Developer-Front End Developer
Symphony Teleca's 6,000+ employees support customers from 32 offices globally, including delivery centers in Asia, Europe and the Americas. We deliver solutions for product and services innovation, with contemporary product development, systems integration,analytics, and ...
Oracle Policy Automation
Must be eligible to work in US
we are currently seeking an experienced Oracle Policy Automation (OPA) Consultant for a 6 month to 1 year opportunity the Atlanta, GA area and mist be willing to take W2 hourly or salary We are looking to hire asap and we need 6 to 7 ...
Oct 23 -
Technical Support Representative
Who is BrightLink?
Because we build technology for the professional credentialing industry, BrightLink sits in the crossroads between what people were and what they're going to become. We help individuals demonstrate value, articulate trustworthiness, and move to a new ...
Oct 23 -
Information Technology IT Manager
Permanent full time position available for an individual with high exposure to Voice & Data technologies. Knowledge of Cisco, VMware and Microsoft, as well as experience with a converged environment.
* Troubleshoot voice and data network problems
*Perform ...
Administrator 47543 GA
Req ID: 47543
Closing Date: 10/29/2014
Hours: 8:00am - 5:00pm
Category: Administrator
Estimated Duration: 11/03/2014 - 06/30/2015
Job Description:
GDOT is seeking a Senior SharePoint Server Administrator to manage the SharePoint Enterprise environments. The ...


text:
In what was arguably the most entertaining weekend of the football season, week 14 had plenty of fantasy football drama as well with major injuries, huge games from big names, and unknowns who contributed as well. Let's get right to the studs, duds, and sleepers from all the week 14 action heading into tonight's Monday Night finale.
Jacksonville Jaguars 27, Houston Texans 20
Studs: Even though the Texans dropped their 11th straight, Andre Johnson had a big game pulling in 154 yards on 13 catches. The change to Case Keenum under center probably won't change his value since he's played with him already quite a bit this year. For Jacksonville, Maurice Jones-Drew ran for 103 yards and added 20 yards receiving although he didn't get into the end zone keeping him for a great game.
Duds: The top receiver for the Jags, Cecil Shorts III finished with only two catches for 13 yards. Ben Tate failed to follow up on his huge game last week running for just 53 yards on 14 carries..
Sleepers: Both tight ends found the end zone, but Garrett Graham continues to get so many targets that he's worth a look at a TE1 in PPR leagues. Graham caught eight of 14 targets Sunday for 73 yards and a touchdown. Going forward, Jordan Todman has shown he can make the most of his touches scoring a touchdown on his one reception and running for 14 yards on seven carries.


text:
Sloppy Joes with Corn and Carrots
Kitchen Tested
- Yield 4 servings
With the addition of corn and carrots, this oldie becomes a goodie--and the kids still love it.
- 1/2 cup chopped onion
- 1/2 cup shredded peeled carrots
- 1 pound ground sirloin
- 2 (8-ounce) cans no-salt-added tomato sauce
- 1/3 cup barbecue sauce
- 1 (11-ounce) can Mexicorn, drained
- 1 tablespoon light brown sugar
- 4 bun halves, toasted
- In a large skillet with nonstick cooking spray, cook onion, carrots and meat over medium heat until done, about 10 minutes. Drain off any excess grease. Add tomato sauce, barbecue sauce, corn and brown sugar, cooking 5 minutes until well heated. Spoon onto bun halves.


text:
Prairie Center Dr & Prairie Lakes Dr has a Walk Score of 60 out of 100. This location is Somewhat Walkable so some errands can be accomplished on foot.
This location is in Eden Prairie. Nearby parks include Hyland-Bush-Anderson Lakes Park, Hyland-Bush-Anderson Lakes Park and Hyland-Bush-Anderson Lakes Park.
Nearby schools include Eden Lake Elementary School, Eden Prairie Montessori Learning Center and Eagle Ridge Academy Charter School.
The closest grocery stores are Cub Foods, BiPro USA and Dole Food Co.
Nearby coffee shops include Caribou Coffee, Green Tea Co and Panera Bread. There are 13 restaurants within a 15 minute walk including Carter's Cafe, Great Mandarin Restaurant and Little Tokyo.
Prairie Center Dr & Prairie Lakes Dr is near Supervalu Headquarters and C.H. Robinson Worldwide Headquarters.


text: Reblogged from sbzak-deactivated20140518 7 notes Posted 20, February, 2012 sbzak: Nirvana - "Lithium" (Live) I'm posting a performance of this song in honor of Kurt Cobain's birthday today. This is easily one of my all-time favorite Nirvana songs. It's just flawless. And this has got to be my favorite performance of it. The energy level is awesome and you can really see that Kurt and the rest of the band are having a blast singing it live. I just absolutely love the chorus when Kurt uses his "scream" voice. Just gets me every time. It is so powerful and angry and bitter, I just can listen to it for hours on end. And it is definitely better live than in the studio. So, yeah, happy birthday, Kurt. I'll be listening to your music and thinking of you today. #nirvana #lithium


text:
Bronze Art deco leaves
by Wood-n-Images
Art Print
Collect your choice of gallery quality Giclée, or fine art prints custom trimmed by hand in a variety of sizes with a white border for framing.
A bronze relief with the retro look of the 1920' & 30's
- 76Promote
thanks alley. It's a detail photo of the entry to the Ohio Supreme Court here in Columbus. The leaves are buckeye leaves which is the state tree.


text:
Like Magic's Song "Rude"? — Listen to the DAD Version! Heck Yeah!
We all love the song "Rude" by Magic about a young man who asks a dad for his daughter's hand in marriage. The dad says no and the boy sings about how "rude" he is and how they'll elope and be happy anyway. Well, that's cute if you're the boy. If you're the dad? Not so much. Check out this parody:


text:
Why is ESX the hottest event in the electronic security industry?
It's all about…
our pure focus on the needs and motivations of the trade (companies that install, integrate and monitor for profit),
- our focus on the highest quality audience (senior executives, functional managers and about to be manager from bigger, better companies), and
- our focus on a high-quality, affordable education and networking experience for attendees.
These are the ingredients that make ESX a top-flight sales and marketing opportunity for any maker or supplier of electronic security products and services that uses installing, integrating and monitoring companies to bring their product to market.
For More Information
For more information on sponsorships and promotional opportunities, contact our sales team:
John Enright
Director, Exhibit & Sponsorship Sales
770.432.8410 x107
Anthony O'Shea
National Account Manager
770.432.8410 x109
Click here to view our non-exhibitor attendance policy.


text:
Cracking open Hewlett Packard's IIP, the original personal LaserJet printer
Summary: The Hewlett Packard LaserJet IIP popularized the desktop personal laser printer. TechRepublic cracks it open to see what made the IIP tick.
TOPICS: Hewlett-Packard, CXO, Hardware, Legal, Printers
20 of 26Image
The Scanner motor, as viewed from the front of the printer.
Photo by: Erik Eckel / TechRepublic.com
Toshiba manufactured the scanner motor unit used in HP's IIP LaserJet.
Photo by: Erik Eckel / TechRepublic.com
The IIP's 115 volt power supply was manufactured by Sony.
Photo by: Erik Eckel / TechRepublic.com
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