843 on Oct 6, 2026

843 on 20261006

As of 20261013 ... It's been a week since I (pre)bowled an 843 series at 222 Dutch Lanes ... games of 279 - 298 - 266 ... reaching a goal (800+ series) that I've dreamed of for a long, long time ... many details are already faded ... but here's what I remember ...

I've been ramping up for the Pennsylvania Senior State Tournament on 10/18-19 ... much to Kate's chagrin (ie. I've been practicing A LOT) ... and a part of the final ramp up includes a lot of pre-bowling for my Thursday Seniors league that I will miss while in Portland for the end of October thru Miles' birthday on Nov 17th ... and A LOT of the ramp up has included "coaching" ... primarily from Mark (Moon) Matroni but also some from Troy Lint and Ryan Graham ... ie. almost every time I'm in practicing, I get lanes near the desk where Mark is working and he's watching when he can and he's coaching! And any/every time Troy is in the house, he'll come say hi and offer a tip or 2. And it seems to be making a difference ... but, then again, I kinda/sorta feel like I've been getting better for quite a while ... it's so hard to get better ... glad I'm enjoying the journey even if the destination seems far, far away ... ie. there are SO MANY better bowlers than me ... it's a tough crowd :-)

Oct 6 was the first of my pre-bowl sessions ...

I had bowled league the previous night ... sub'ing on a 5-person team ... shot 191 192 248 ... I really don't remember it :-)

Tuesday is a day I always bowl if I'm in Lancaster as it's BOGO at 222 Dutch Lanes ... about a 10 minute drive north of my house ... my home house since the 2nd time I walked in and Ryan Graham yelled out "Hey, Howard! Glad to see you again!" ... he's a remarkable young man and an incredible bowler!

By far the biggest contributor to the 843 was Troy Lint ... he was talking to Moon at the desk when I walked in ... and for some reason immediately said to me something along the lines of "get your fingers in the ball!" After I said something which made it clear that I was NOT understanding him, he held up his hand with his middle finger tips bent UP and said something along the lines of "do THIS at release!" ... and then held his hand open with middle finger tips extended straight and said "... and NOT THIS!"

Somehow ... someway ... I got it! A lightbulb went ON! Hey! THAT seems like something I can do! (as opposed to "turn the ball to get revs/tilt on it" ... something that I can honestly say I had been making a concerted effort to do more/better for several months ... and not making much progress)

So I paid for my 4 games (at 2 for $2.75 ... so $5.50 for 4 games!) and gave it a try ... and it felt good ... but ... not really anything significant ... my scores were 200ish ...

Ah ... there was one other thought in my mind ... from a recent practice session where both Moon and Troy had made it clear that I wasn't adjusting to the right enough ... that I was satisfied being light in the pocket ... that I should move more right until FLUSH! Ah ... OK ... again ... I can do that! Usually my target in around the 7-9 boards ... they just wanted me out to 6 if/when I was light in the pocket ... let the drier 6 board get me flush ...

So ... I'm done with my 4 practice games ... not sure I should pre-bowl ... but the clock's ticking and I need to get 6 series done ... so I need to get started ... so ... let's go ...

Lanes 37/38 are fresh so that's where they put me ... what ball to start with? For a long time, my go to was the Black Widow Hybrid ... it's just felt like the ball I got the most "tilt" with ... but it's kinda/sorta felt like the least repeatable ... same with the Mania ... those 2 balls have been VERY similar and I've thrown the Hybrid in league and the Mania in tournaments (had a 671 with it at last year's State Tournament) ... and my Black Widow Ghost has long been a "benchmark ball" for me (it's what I tossed my previous high series of 776 in Corvallis with) but it's not a strong finishing ball so I've gotten away from using it on fresh ... about a year ago I traded my Phase 2 (which I NEVER had ANY success with) to Moon for his Optimum Idol - a ball that he and Troy wanted to see if I would have success with due to "early roll" (as opposed to the widow's were late breaking / hockey stick reactions) ... and it was different and a good different ... so before going to Reno this year, I got a new ball with those same characteristics - Paragon ... and that's what I ended up throwing for most of that tournament (which was HUGEly hampered by my thumb changing size!) ... and then Moon got me thinking about getting a new ball that'd be "in between" ... we settled on a Storm Bionic ... but Troy suggested and talked me into a Zero Mercy Hybrid ... and I *LOVE* the Zero Mercy Hybrid! It does start its hook sooner than the Widows and it hits like a TRUCK ("New Ball Carry")!!! My first week of league I threw the Paragon and shot a 715 ... but didn't come close to that since then ... so ... not obvious ... I just don't want to get too many games on the ZMH before the State Senior ... so ... Paragon it is! I hit it with a 500 pad (as HIGHLY recommended by both Moon and Troy) ... and ... let's GO.

I got 5 minutes of practice ... and I don't remember anything special about those throws ... ie. I'm pretty sure not all of my shots were strikes ...

Moon was sitting there watching my first 2 shots carry light ... then I flushed my next 2 ... and as I was getting up on the approach for the 5th frame, Moon noticed that the strike hadn't scored in the 4th??? After we convinced ourselves that I hadn't bowled on a wrong lane ... he went back to the desk and added the 4th frame strike ... and after that delay I yanked my next shot for a 4-pin ... converted ... packed my 6th frame ... but it didn't score again! So Moon added that told Ryan what was happening and knew immediately what was going on (ie. this had happened before on Lane 38) ... so I flushed the 7th frame and then Ryan flipped a switch on 38 and watched me flush the 8th frame and verified that the score happened ... and I proceeded to flush the 9th and all 3 in the 10th ... ho hum a 279 :-)

A bit surprisingly, I was able to "let it flow" ... ie. not get excited about shooting a 279 ... and I just kept flushing the pocket and getting the carry ... not adjusting a bit ... about half way thru the 2nd game, a couple of guys from my Senior league came in to open bowl and they were razzing me about all the strikes and playing the "hey that's not fair" card but it was all in good spirit ... and I just kept flushing them ... and they kept an eye on me and kept cheering me on ... it was getting a bit harder to "stay in the moment" ... but clearly I was ... until the 12th ... I let the thought creep into my head "don't pull it" ... which resulted in me pushing it out just a bit ... it hooked early and right onto the head pin for a 4-6 split ... for a 298! And those guys let me have it with both barrels :-)

But again surprisingly ... and this time VERY surprisingly ... I wasn't too high nor too low ... let's just keep going! And don't you know it ... first ball in game 3 was my only "tap" ... a solid 9-pin ... and just like the 4-pin in the first game I picked it up routinely ... and then proceeded to flush 6 in row! At that point, Mark wandered back down from the desk to check it out ... so I blame him for my next yank ... which went right thru the nose ... luckily leaving the odd 6-9-10 (rather than the split that I deserved) ... which I converted, again routinely ... at this point, I was somewhat aware of the score and the impending 800 ... and that shook me a bit ... but I think I flushed the next 2 ... then got a light swisher in the 11th and yanked a 4-pin on the fill ball for ... 266 ... 843!!!

Ryan took video of the last 2 shots ... they don't look as good as I'd hoped ... as good as I felt!

As of 20261020 ... One final note/memory of 10/6 and the 843 ... I had 5 interruptions ... I mentioned the 3 due to the lane scoring issue ... then in the middle of the 2nd game, my ball didn't come back ... and that happened again some time during the 3rd game ... somehow, none of those interruptions ruffled me at all ... perhaps they even game me a good pause ...

So ... did the magic continue? The simple answer is ... no ... I bowled my Thursday afternoon Senior league 2 days later ... 192-203-215 ... bleh ... I think it was even on the same pair! Just didn't carry ... didn't come close to being as consistent ... and probably missed a few spares ... and then ... I came back Saturday for another pre-bowl series ... 212-232-244 688 ... with 2 missed spares (a 4/7 and a 10) ... so ... still some magic :-)

The next day (Sun, 10/11) I bowled a tournament ... at a house about an hour south that's both wood lanes and string pins! It was 450 Baker Doubles ... my young friend Ryan has a 238 book and so it paired up nice with my 212 book! But I stunk :-( The format was he bowled every shot on the left lane and I bowled every shot on the right lane and we moved every 2 games ... kinda interesting. Ryan struck every frame of game 1 ... I had 2 opens and couple of strikes so we salvaged 212ish ... but then he struggled the 2nd game and I didn't help so we posted a 169ish ... sigh ... but then we both got lined up and shot 230+ and 240+ the next 2, winning the high game pot with the 240+ in game 4 ... and then I just didn't adjust fast enough and we fell out of the top 4 and didn't cash ... bleh :-(

Next pre-bowl was the next day, Monday, and it went well ... 216-236-227 679 ... only 1 missed spare (10-pin, then picked up the next 4 10-pins) ... but then that Monday night, I bowled league (subbing) and shot 184-183-201 568 (don't remember any details ... probably again just didn't carry and didn't come close to being consistent and missed a couple of spares. Next pre-bowl was 2 days later (Wed, 10/14) and shot 199-278-240 for 717 ... sweet ... this was a pre-bowl for the Monday night subbing I've been doing ... so they will be happy with that. And decided to go again while I was there ... and continued to do well ... so change pairs and go ... 235-247-231 713 ... 1430 for 6 games ... kinda/sorta magical :-)

Next league bowling was the Thursday Seniors ... and ... bleh ... 159-200-195 554 ... lots of splits ... and ... well ... you can guess the rest ... just nothing ... not to mention lack of magic. Maybe starting to get too amp'd for the Senior State tournament? I started that trip right after bowling the league in the early afternoon ... driving from Lancaster to our cottage in Hooversville (near where Josh's kids live) and then driving from there the next morning up to Meadville / Cambridge Springs ... getting there early enough to throw 2 games at each house ... and both houses felt like they had a good/normal house shot ... and I'm ready to go.

BUT ... amp'd I was ... first game total jitters ... 139 :-( With that aside, I proceeded to shoot 231 and 235 for 605 ... what could have been. Then bowled another team event that afternoon and pretty much repeated the scenario: 157 235 214 606 ... sigh. Next day (at the other house, Meadville) I was jittery to start again ... but didn't recover this time ... 164-181-193 538 ... just missed A TON of spares ... then did kinda/sorta pull my head out of my ass for singles and shot 192-227-207 621 ... there was A LOT more there ... just didn't get 'em. I mostly thru the Zero Mercy Hybrid (I really do like it!) ... towards the end of the first series, Moon suggested changing to the Mania and I did and it worked GREAT! But then trying it a couple of times later didn't go as well. There was one kinda/sorta funny time when everyone was running their shots into the nose ... and when I did also, I decided to try my BW Ghost ... but ... I also moved in a board ... bucket :-( And then sailed my spare shot by and picked off the 5-pin ... hey ... there's still A TON of oil in the middle! So ... I switched back to the Zero Mercy Hybrid and finished the game well.

Back home in Lancaster Monday for Monday night league ... and shot 178-202-202 582 ... it was a tough pair ... maybe I was tired ... the anchor on the opposing team has a 217 book and shot 567 ... one lane hooked and the other didn't ... shouldn't have been as a big of a deal as it turned out to be ... just sayin'.

And then today ... my final pre-bowl ... started with the Paragon and shot 212 ... it just wasn't working ... so switched to BW Ghost and shot 266 (with a missed 10-pin ... noticing a trend? :-() and 244 for 722 ... I'm BACK, baby! :-)

Flying to Portland tomorrow ... onward!

WBC & Spring Training @ AZ

Went to the first WBC game featuring USA vs Mexico @ Chase Field (aka BOB) in Phoenix, AZ on 3/7/2006 ... that's me & my folks waiting for the gates to open ... a festive crowd ... lots of sombrero's and Cubs/Yankees/Nats/etc caps :-)

The pregame pagentry featured flags and intros ...

Some students up from Mexico were WAY into it ... a good thing! (notice their green/white/red shirts spell M-E-X-I-C-O ... well done!) Even in defeat (USA 2, Mexico 0), the Mexican fans helped make it a fun day for all. Ole!

I was there ... the 1982 US Open

Y’all know this … but reading this article just made me smile … and want to share the memory … again …

Tom Watson's shot on #17 at 1982 US Open at Pebble Beach

My Dad & I had a great day at Pebble Beach that day … we got there bright and early … and Dad had a good strategy: we’d follow guys a while … then find a good spot to watch a few groups play thru … I think we made it round the course a couple of times … got my first up-close look at what a good caddie does (Lanny Wadkins caddy put down the bag, sprinted up the hill to the green and sprinted back, gave Lanny 2 numbers, something like 163/171 = distances to the front of the green and to the pin, hand Lanny a club, and then watch Lanny drop the golf ball *right* on the flag!) … the beautiful scenery was matched by exciting scoreboard watching … and just a good time being with Dad.

As the day, and tournament, was coming to a close, the crowd had fewer and fewer places to go … and we were at the back of the pack. Watson and Nicklaus were tied … no way to get to 18 in time to see Nicklaus finish … so we decided to get the best look we could at Watson on 17 … and even that wasn’t great … we were on the right side … about mid-hole = 100 yards from tee, 100 yards from green … but we had a good look at both. After Watson’s drive, the mood was bummer … since Watson was in the rough, above the hole, it looked like we’d see him lose the tournament rather than win it. The flag was between us and him … we could see him talking with his caddie … taking test swings to gage the rough, which his feet sank into, so we knew the ball was deep into. We could see how high he was over the hole, perhaps our view exaggerated that. The time came to take the shot … the quiet of the moment … the few seconds of expectation … the BURST of the crowd when the ball disappeared … we were THERE!!! We instantly knew we’d seen history … everybody knew … it was sweet. We felt a bit smug that all the people who invested in a view of 18 only heard the roar from those of us in the peanut gallery (so to speak).

It’s been fun over the years to see this highlight many times … and I’m sure it will be played several times over the next couple of weeks leading up to and during the 2010 US Open at Pebble Beach …

Tom Watson has been playing well lately … made a run at last year’s British Open … got an exemption into this year’s US Open … maybe he’ll have some more 17th hole magic for us  (note: but it won’t be from the same spot, the article linked above says that spot got washed out by the ocean during a storm!)

See ya!
Howard

OT - this history of the smily is interesting and funny ...

Original Bboard Thread in which :-) was proposed

I'm getting married :-)

For details, check out this blog ...

http://howardandkate.blogspot.com/

Corvallis Fall Festival 10K

If you ever want to set a personal record for a running race, here's a formula for success ... put in some miles of training ... and then get a friend who's a long & fast runner who's willing to run the race at your goal pace (ie. at a slooow training pace for him) ... voila!

BIG thanks to Marv Newcombe for being that friend for me today!

I needed a boost ... the training runs have felt like they've been sap'ing me ... and I have not felt like I've been making progress ... after today, I can see again that I am making progress!
The bottom line for today was 10K in 56:50 ... here's the Garmin data with Google Map ...
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6873902
I went in with a goal of 9:20/mile ... which is what the McMillan calculator ( http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/cgi-bin/calculations.pl) says is the equivalent of a 9:00/mile pace for 5K ... a pace I could not keep in my previous 5K on July 12th ... so I felt that a 9:20 goal was aggressive ...

When we started out with an 8:55 first mile, and my HR was at 168 just about 3/4ths of a mile into the race, I was a bit worried that I'd made the classic mistake of starting out too fast ... but, to some extent, it felt like I couldn't go any slower ... the only evidence to the contrary being the HR ... and so I/we backed off on the pace ... and the HR did drop back down to the low 160s. The 3rd mile was a slight incline ... and the HR got up to 170ish at the peak ... but came down quickly when we turned around and went back down the incline. I felt good that I was able to do that 3rd mile at my target pace (9:19). There was a water station at about 3.25 miles ... and I decided to walk thru that and drink a bit of water ... the weather was a bit warmer than usual (race didn't start until 9:15, and it was a clear blue sky) ... but with the decline, I was still able to finish that 4th mile right at pace (9:20). The decline continued thru the 5th mile and that resulted in 9:08 ... cool! That's when I became 100% confident that I'd be under an hour ... I could tell that I wasn't going to collapse ... in fact, I could tell that I was going to be able to pick up the pace for the final mile.

My secondary goal for the race was do the 6th mile in under 9 minutes ... but that was based on an assumption that it was mostly downhill ... oops ... turned out the 5-mile mark was pretty much at the bottom of the course ... and much of that 6th mile was incline ... but with Marv's encouragement, I was able to pick up the pace and keep it up so that when we did get to the final decline stretch, that 6th mile came in at 8:58 ... which was pretty energizing for me ...
So much so that I opt'd to go for my third goal for the race ... which was to sprint to the finish and leave Marv in my dust :-) At what I thought was about 2 blocks to go, I kicked the sprint into gear ... and indeed I did leave Marv behind ... but it turned out I was 3-4 blocks out when I started ... and I totally ran out of gas ... with my HR at 183, I just didn't have anything left to finish that last ~100m ... and Marv reeled me in! If I were him, I woulda blown by and shown the soles of my shoes ... but that's not Marv's style at all ... he got up to me and just kept the encouragement coming ... and got me to the finish line under the 57 minute mark ... man, was I hurtin' ... whatever my VO2Max is, I was *there* at that moment! It sure felt like I was at my max heart rate ... I could not get my mouth open wide enough to get more air inside me ...

It's fun to kick to the finish ... I just need to make sure I've got the finish line in sight before doing it :-)

So ... 5 weeks until the Half-Marathon @ San Francisco ... now I think I can keep up my training ... now I think I can reach my goal of doing it at less than a 10-min/mile pace ... McMillan calc says 9:40 min/mile based on what I did for 10K today ... I don't know about that ... especially given the hills and potential wind on the GG bridge ... but I think a 10-min/mile pace is a good goal to shoot for ... I'm looking forward to it ... both for the milestone it will represent and because 2 of my support team, will be running it with me! See you there, Gary! See you there, Dur! Let's go get 'em!!!

I'm thinking I've got one more goal for 2008 ... and it will bring this running journey full circle ... my first 5K was the "Run Wild" 5K at Golden Gate Park (SF) on the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year ... I was not able to run the full 5K at that time ... in fact, I had to stop and walk 2 times ... finished in over 33 minutes ... well over my goal of 10mins/mile ... well, this year, I'll go back ... and my goal will be sub-9mins/mile! And I think I'll be able to recover from the HM and get into shape for doing just that! http://www.rhodyco.com/runwild.html ... and this year, I won't plan to drive home (ie. to Corvallis) that same day ... now *that* was nutso! :-)

Onward!

ps.
Here's a picture of me and Marv from back in May after he ran the Eugene Half-Marathon and I did it's 5K ... http://picasaweb.google.com/LynchMob98/EugeneMarathon#5196759072363118914 ... he's doing the Portland Marathon next Sunday ... GO MARV!

7 months of runnin' fun ... leading up to 5K at the Eugene Marathon

Back in mid-October, I joined a challenge from my Pastor to men in my church to "improve the temple" ... in other words, to get fit. What he primarily had in mind was losing weight ... what I primarily had in mind was to be able to run 3 miles in 30 minutes, an aribrary benchmark at the time. I had no idea what "5K" was ... and I certainly knew that running a marathon was on the list of most outlandish things that I could possibly imagine.

The next day, I got on a treadmill at the fitness center here where I work ... and I ran until fear and ignorance and fatigue prompted me to slow to a walk after 4 minutes ... but I was on my way. And, not knowing anything else, I committed myself to, each time I got on the treadmill, running for 1 more minute ... simple!

When I did realize that 3 miles and 5K were about the same thing ... and that 5K races were pretty common, I caught some kind of bug that I'm still carrying with me to this day ... I signed up for and ran my first 5K in San Francisco on the Sunday after Thanksgiving to end my annual trip to the Bay Area that weekend. I had only worked myself up to being able to sustain running for about 18 minutes ... not nearly enough to get thru 5K at my plodding pace ... but after 2 stretches of walking to catch my breath, I finished that first 5K in 33:30 ... transistion from "on my way" to "on the board" ... still short of my goal (which had a deadline of January 5th), but for the first time, I did feel like that goal was do-able ... hunh, how about that?

Next up was another 5K in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park a few days before Chirstmas ... this time with Gary Gan, a classmate from Stanford, whose in-laws lived just blocks north of where we'd be running, so his whole family came for the event, and his oldest son, who had run some cross-country in high school, joined us also. I remember seeing them slowly pull away from me right from the start ... and then learning that Gary got a taste of that experience as his son pulled away from him about mid-race. A 30:27 finish meant that I had met my goal ... for the 3.1 mile race, 30:27 is sub-10-minutes-per-mile pace! A little more training and my first dose of encouragement from Gary and his son had pushed me into new territory!

And I had 5K/GO Fever bad, still ... and went ahead with plans to run another 5K on that Christmas holiday trip to the Bay Area ... on New Year's Day in Santa Rosa ... a "Resolution Run" ... put on by the local runner's club ... with the start/finish line at the high school which my brother-in-law graduated from! And as I was stretching in prep for the race, a rumor got confirmed when my sister, Alyson, showed up ... READY TO RUN! Well, one outrageous turn deserves another, I s'pose. What I remember about that race was not knowing where the route was and standing at what I thought was the back of the pack talking to Aly when the gun went off and everyone started running and I was really standing right on the starting line (just off to one side) ... hey ... so long, Aly ... see you later! But being in front was not kind to me ... when I crossed a chalk mark in the street that said "1 mile", my watch said 8:43 ... could that be??? Well, yes ... as evidenced by all the people who proceeded to pass me non-stop for the rest of race as I totally ran out of gas. But I finished in 29:30 ... and another milestone/barrier was broken! After gulping down a few bottles of water and scarfing a few bananas, I was fresh as a daisy ... well, fresh as a wilted daisy, perhaps ... and I started walking back up the course until I met up with Aly and did the run/walk thing with her for about the last 1/3-mile ... after which we shared both smiles and groans as we basked in the thrill of our accomplishment and the aches in our legs. 2008 was off to a terrific start ... and my goal had been met!

Oregon in winter is not really conducive to running ... but I continued to pound the treadmill and eliptical machines indoors at the fitness center. I found 2 races to run down in Eugune ... the first was a pretty fun event called the "Winter Predictor" ... runners were not allowed to wear stop watches and the "winner" would be the person who most closely predicted their finishing time ... with the key wrench being that the race was 6K (rather than the normal 5K). It was a cold, cold morning ... pockets of ice on the sidewalks ... but all the runners just bundled up and had a good time ... with some nice hot chili and chicken soup served at the finish line .... hmm, hmm, good! I guess I wasn't feeling confident when I predicted 39:53 ... but came in right at my 10-min-per-mile pace with a 36:42 finish ... so whilest I didn't win the "predictor" event (the winner was just off by 1 second!), I was certainly please that I pushed my abililty to do my 10min/mi pace out to 3.71 miles. The next event was 2 weeks later ... and was 4 miles long ... so stretched it out just a bit further ... and my 38:37 finish proved to me that I had really left the 10min/mi pace behind ... so, what's next?

I wanted to run a race in my hometown, Corvallis, so I found a 5K to be run on the OSU campus. Wanting to continue to stretch myself, and calculating on google maps that the starting line was only about 3 miles from my apartment, I decided to jog to it! All was well ... until about half way thru the race and it started to absolutely *pour* ... still managed to finish in 29:32 ... so not a record, but, given the 3-mile warm-up jog and the inclement weather, I still chalked it up as a success. But, given how wet I was, I think it was wise that I bailed out (pun intended?) on plans to jog home, and just caught a bus, which I did have to run a bit to catch, btw :-)

I don't remember when I first got the idea ... but many days I found myself surfing running web pages and dreaming at the all the events I could do ... and I knew I was going to Phoenix for spring training baseball, so I checked to see if they had a race that looked fun in March ... and what I found was a Half Marathon ... gulp! But the interesting twist was that you could enter it as a relay team! Surely I could find some suckers to run it with me? YES! For reasons beyond my comprehension, the date worked out for both Paul Fisher, another Stanford classmate, from Seattle, WA, and Dan Lynch, a counsin from Franklin, TN ... and so we converged on the Usery Mountain Recreation Area and had at it! Many things about that weekend were fantastic ... starting with how the breakdown of our relay assignments worked out. I was ready to try a 10K ... so I took the first 2 legs ... Dan was in training for an upcoming Half Marathon and he wanted to do about 7 miles at a run-walk pace, and so he did that for the 2nd-half of the Half Marathon ... and Paul, breaking out of a near-30-year running slumber, was only interested to get his feet wet for 5K ... so we gave him the uphill-finishing-5K-leg ... which he naviagated quite quickly to a 9th place finish for our team (LynchMob) in the Open Men's division! And then what proved most fun for me was that, after running my 10K in 1:02 (with 31:00 + 31:00 splits ... right at 10min/mi!), I was good to go and finish the Half Marathon keeping up with Dan's run-walk pace ... WHAT A BLAST that was! So I actually ended up doing a Half Marathon in 2:28 ... what? Yup, that's right, folks ... I put a Half Marathon on my resume! The scenary out in the Arizona desert and inspiration and movitation and encouragment from both Dan and Paul was AMAZINGLY powerful ... and that time doing the run-walk with Dan just *flew* by, that was actually *fun*. Taking our picture after the race, we were all beaming and flaunting our medals ... which we even wore to the spring training baseball game that afternoon ... sweeeeeet!

That event took over a week to "recover" from ... but the stiffness/soreness in my left heel/achilles finally did work it's way out .. but I did let that kinda be an excuse to ease off the running a bit ... that, combined with playing some golf in April, got me convinced to just be in "maintenance mode" for a while. As my next scheduled event approached, and a few stretches of non-rainy weather occurred, I did get energized to get out and pound the pavement and prep for it a bit. That event was today, the 5K portion of the Eugene Marathon ... which I signed up for way back in December, and even talked a good friend, Marv Newcombe, into doing ... and egging him into signing up for the Half Marathon ... his first attempt at such a feat (after several years of getting himself into shape by running 3-5 miles at a pop, but never doing a "race"). We enjoyed our trip yesterday down to the "expo" to pick up our race packets with bib's and chip's ... staples of the modern mega-race. I got up at 4am (really woke up at 330am with the coming excitement just preventing any more sleep) ... scarf'd a banana and granola bar and drank a bunch of water ... and then headed out pick up Marv ... and his running buddy whom he'd talked into doing the Half Marathon ... and *his* running buddy whom he'd talked into doing the Half Marathon! Seriously, my pastor's enthusiasm to "improve the temple" had trickled down, in this case, to a 4th generation! See what encouragement, and friendship can do? Yes, that does scare me. We got down to the race finish area at University of Oregon's Autzen Stadium about 530 and by 6 had shuttled to the starting line at UofO's Hayward Field (site of this summer's US Olympic Trials!) ... and joined the 6000-or-so other runners in the mass of humanity who were stretched out and primed to GO, GO, GO! The Half Marathoners went off at 7am ... and I started the 5K at 715. You can see the details of my run at this web site ... thanks to the wonders of the new Garmin 305 heart-rate-monitor / GPS-enable stop watch that I had gotten just a few ago (Marv and his bud both had this also). The summary page shows I ran 3.12 miles in 28:23 for a 9:06 pace ... YOWZA! If you click around a bit, you can get several flavors of graphs, many of which have the option to superimpose heart-rate on it ... which shows that mine got up into the low-180s by the end. I'm not confident of the calibration of the HRM, but suffice it say that I was *gas*d by the end of the race. But I'm also not sure about 28:23 time. The most troubling part of the whole event was the fuzzy finish line ... first there was a blue chip mat .. then an overhead banner that said "finish line" ... and then a pair of blue chip mats after that ... and it was putting my foot on the first of that second set of blue chip mats that seemed to "beep" an indication that I had indeed finished ... but I stop'd my watch when hit that first mat ... so I'm going to be interested to see my "chip time" when the results finally get posted. I'm guessing it will be a couple of seconds more than 28:23 ... whatever. But the other troubling/confusing thing about finish time is what you see if you look at the "Laps". I have the watch program'd to "auto lap" every mile ... well, that data shows I only ran 3.06 miles ... and did so at 9:12 + 9:26 + 9:15 for the first 3 miles ... so it's not clear to me how I could have finished with a 9:06 pace. And those lap splits more closely align with my perception of how I was doing ... when the watch said I had run 1-mile, I knew was around 9:10ish ... and just under 19:00 for 2-miles ... and I know I picked up the pace a bit for the 3rd mile. Eh, I need to use this new-fangled HRM/GPS thingy and see I can figure out any patterns to the noise in the data. For now, it sure is closeenough ... and it's fun data to have during the run ... and it's fun to look at afterwards, especially the route superimposed on a google map!

A few pics of the gang before and after and a couple of videos of Marv, at about 9.2 miles and at the finish ... a day to remember.

Anyway today's results get sliced, it took another step to my next goal ... a 9min/mi pace! That seems do-able ... asumming I put in some work and really "train". Can and will do!

I'm hoping that next up will be a 15K in Coronado, CA ... the place I was born ... on July 4th. I've spent the 4th of July down in San Diego for the past 3 years ... so that part of it is now an annual trip (pilgrimage?) to visit my best friends, Al & Cindy Cullins. As an added bonus this year, Al's brother, Larry, is expecting his first child right around that time, and so I'm very much looking forward to seeing them also. My goal for the 15K will be sub-1:30 ... ie. doing 3 sub-30-minute 5Ks back-to-back-to-back. I may not be fast, but I'm gonna see if I can "go long"!

As I know you all know, my ultimate goal this year is doing the US Half Marathon in San Francisco. Again, Gary Gan is signed up to do that with me. He's scheming to do a Half Marathon prior to that ... he's been doing some serious training in prep for that until he was recently derailed just a bit with a calf injury. You know, one of the aliases that "running" turns out to have is "injury and risk management". There's injuries underfoot, literally, for each of us while we work on staying fit, and have fun running race. It's just part of the process, pure and simple. Perhaps it's nature's way of saying "hey, you, take a break"? My plan on how I'll try to handle that when it happens to me is to "think long term". I'm gonna do races again next summer ... perhaps expand out to "spring triathlons" (about a 1/2 hour swim, plus about a 1/2 hour bike ride, plus a 5K) ... yo! Perhaps a marathon??? No way, right? No way, right? Hmmm ... I'll just say this ... I've got the bug ... I've got the fever ... and my best friend has run a marathon in 5 hours and 15 minutes ... and I'm pretty sure I can beat that time :-) :-) :-) Now *that* is what it's all about!

Onward!

UPDATE: Results of the 5K http://www.onlineraceresults.com/race/view_race.php?race_id=7581 ... 28:24 is my official time ... 9:10 pace ... BOOK IT! But, in my heart and mind, I'm feeling like I did 5K in 28:46ish = 9:17 pace ... still success ... and still feeling like a 9min/mi pace is within reach!

Is Trevor Hoffman "Done"?

Here’s a way to chime in on a group-think look at the question of “Is Trevor Done?” …

http://www.predictify.com/auctionview.aspx?ID=3873

The question for the group is this: What will be the ratio of the number of Saves + Wins that Trevor Hoffman, pitcher for the San Diego Padres, gets credited with versus the number of Blown Saves + Losses that Trevor Hoffman gets credited with, during the month of May, 2008?

You have until the end of April to weigh in … so far, 19 folks have predicted … and the distribution of preditions so far is pretty mixed.

We’ll see if this helps us learn anything … your comments are welcome.