フールマラソン
４月２９日にBig Sur International Marathonを走りました。初めてのフールマラソンです。宮古島のトライアスロンの中がフールマラソンもありますけど、今回マラソンだけでした。朝３時に起きて、バスで行かないと行けなかったですから、Startingの所で２時間待ちました。コースは結構難しかった。新聞のサイトで写真のリンクあります：　http://extras.montereyherald.com/slideshows/bigsur0430/
私は３時間２５分で完走しました。３２００名ぐらいの中、２０１位でした。

Big Sur International marathon

On April 29, 2007, I ran the Big Sur marathon. It was my first marathon where I strictly ran a marathon without also doing another type of exercise, ie. swim or bike. I signed up for the race on a whim because I heard it was a really beautiful course and gave me a good reason to properly train for something.

Roughly 3200 runners awoke in the middle of the night, 3 a.m. for me, to catch an hour-long bus ride to the start of the race. Big Sur is a point to point marathon where a stretch of highway 1 along the California coast gets closed off. Since everybody has to be bused to the starting point, there ends up being a 2 hour wait where people try to keep warm (it was somewhere in the 40's), eat some food and prepare for the race.

After speaking with some officials at the registration area and other runners, I was told to expect to run about 20-30 minutes slower than my usual marathon time since the hills can be quite unforgiving (there's a 2 mile incline at mile 10) and also even on the "flat" portions, the road seems to be tilted so you're not running very comfortably.

When we started out, It was quite foggy and I thought that maybe the sun would shine thru at some point. NOPE, it was foggy and quite windy the whole time. I guess that made for pretty good running conditions but for me it also meant I was cold for 26.2 miles. I have trouble warming up, especially my hands, so I didn't sweat very much. Since I didn't sweat very much but kept taking in fluids, I ended up having to use the restroom 3 times. That might be too much information but just thought I'd share.

Well, in the end I finished the run in 3 hours 25 minutes 13 seconds. At every mile marker there was somebody saying the current run time, mile pace, and projected finish time so with about 6 miles to go I knew that if I kept up my pace, I'd finish in 3:30. I was the 201st finisher out of about 3200 people. It felt great even though I didn't get to see much scenery. Here is a slideshow in the local paper: http://extras.montereyherald.com/slideshows/bigsur0430/

If you also want to read the article about the race: http://montereyherald.com/ci_5783299

My friend Gabriel, who drove me down and ran the 5 km race, and I drove the course the day before and took some shots. The 5 km was Gabriel's first ever race and he placed 4th in his age division. My friends Jed, Peta, and their son Kai were also there to support me and enjoy a little weekend vacation. The pictures below are of the course, the Monterey aquarium, and my friends. Thanks to everybody who supported me and donated. The donation site will be active until June so feel free to check it out. There is a link on the right side of my blog.

Jed, Peta, and Kai

Kai

Happy Birthday Peta

Wanna race, Part 2

For those of you taking part in my quest to build a group of us from all over the world participating in friendly challenges, here is a blog that goes over how to get around having to buy a pair of Nike shoes with a sensor hole. There are companies out there with products that you can buy and stick on your shoe but i just went the do-it-yourself route explained in the blog. Here is the site: http://podophile.com/2006/07/14/shoe-hacker-nikeipod-sport-kit-shoe-mod/

So you want to race huh?
Well, how about a challenge? Oh, you're in Japan, Europe, East Coast? That's ok.
If you have an ipod, then all you need is this:

I know what you're thinking: "John, aren't you supposed to be writing about your life, not selling stuff on this blog?"
Yes, BUT my friend Patrick and I have decided we need more people to participate in running challenges to make it fun. It's cool, the sensor keeps track of your pace, miles, time, and transfers it to the nike site so you can keep track of your runs.
We're in the middle of a 10 day challenge to see who runs more.
This is a great way to motivate yourself to run and also see your progress. And don't worry about buying the special Nike shoe, there are other ways of attaching the sensor to your shoe.
So here's your checklist:

1. Ipod nano
2. Nike Ipod Sport kit
3. Internet
4. Friends

That's it. Let me know if you get this because I think it's a great way to keep in touch and stay fit too.

Wine is the drink of choice. Everybody's drinking it.
Things have changed since I graduated from college. 5 plus years have passed and it seems we've all become classier. No more PBR, high life, mad dog... We now all have wine cellars, racks, cool openers, tops, decanters, crystal glasses... I wonder when and how this change came about? I'm just going with the flow although it helps that a glass of red wine is good for you. I've spent the past 5 years drinking Orion Beer and Awamori. I guess I'm lucky in that I've got wine country just an hour away and a great friend to help me learn more about the different fruits, acids, tannens. But I digress. Actually I haven't even started writing about what I originally started this post about. I was just reading about cool new products and came upon a thing called a Winepod. For only $3500 you can have a winery in your kitchen. And it looks nice. I'll be ordering one in about 20 years when I have the funds to invest and the price has come down to about $30 at Target.

The Winepod just happens to be the first of many cool products. If you decide to check out the site (and I'm sure you will), you'll see my future house, how the utilities will be powered, and how I'll be getting around. I'm sure I'll be able to afford all this when I come up with that one big idea. Right now I'm working on a hard drive for the brain so I can remember everything I hear and read. Looks like it's going to be a while.