Searching For A Moment Like This

Race Report

Twelve miles were almost complete and I was running the best half marathon of my life. That's kind of a joke - it was only my 2nd and the odds were with me for it to be my best. Then I felt them coming. Cramps. In both of my calves. Not the entire muscle, but small strands of fibres near the center of the back of my lower leg. "No, not now," I thought, "Not now."

It was 4pm on Sunday, December 4th, and I was sitting at a 2/5 NL game at the Aria casino. I'd been in Vegas for about a day and a half and had perhaps 1 beer and 2 glasses of wine. I was as relaxed as I could be before a race for which I'd trained 3 months. Our group, no, our Team had planned to meet 1 hour before the race at 4:30 to grab a shuttle to the starting line near Mandalay Bay. Otis, G-Rob, Dan, Chako and myself changed into our gear and met near the poker room exit. I was anxious, I wanted to be at the starting line now and begin to stretch. Our team didn't worry about getting there on time, that is until we had been standing in the shuttle line with about 300 other people waiting for a bus that would never come.

I don't like expending any energy before an important race. But in order to get to the starting line on time, we all realized we'd have to walk the mile and a half to get there. We left the Aria at about 4:50pm, it was going to be close, but we should have been able to arrive on time. Along the way, though, police stopped us from crossing the street so that the full marathon race leaders had a clear road. Another delay.

By the time we reached the starting gate, the mass of humanity 33,000 strong prevented us from making any headway towards our assigned starting corrals. Before our team split, Dan grouped us together and reiterated the fact that we were all very lucky just to be able to participate. That had some calming effect on me, but I was still jittery. I gave Otis a hug, wished him luck, and crammed my way into corral #4. The starting gun went off before I even got inside. I was pissed. I hadn't stretched, I hadn't checked my bag and I just realized that I put my water belt on upside down. The two bottles of fluid I was going to run with were long gone and I began to panic just a little. I turned on my GPS watch and watched in dismay as its inability to find a signal magnified my anger. How would I ever be able to prove my finishing time to anyone, let alone, myself?

As you may be aware, I'm an engineer. It's my job to solve problems. That mode of thinking took over and I made some adjustments. First, I took everything I wasn't willing to lose out of my check-in bag. And then I just tossed it to the ground. I got my iPod ready and would simply use the total elapsed song duration to determine my race time. For fluids, I'd just have to use the aid stations throughout the race. For my running pace, I'd use feel. That's one thing I'm pretty good at - determining my pace based on effort, stride and tempo. I said to myself, "Don't let this petty shit ruin your race for you." So when my corral moved to the gate and got ready to run, I did a mental reboot and hit play on my iPod as soon as the gun went off.

It's not my favorite song by any means, but ever since it randomly started my first 10k that I ever ran, I use it to start every race that's longer than 6 miles. Broken, Beat, and Scarred. Three minutes into the song, my GPS watch acquired a signal. I didn't hit start on the watch timer just yet. I'd wait until the first song was over, then I could simply add the duration of that song to my overall time. The first water station came up and I took a drink I'd not normally take. And then I just simply tried to run the race I'd trained for, all the while making sure to soak up the atmosphere of the Vegas Strip at night.

There were some minor logistical obstacles to overcome. For one, even though they group your corrals by anticipated finish time, there's nobody to enforce that rule. I must have passed several hundred people in the first few miles, even a couple of walkers. That's simply unacceptable and dangerous. If you want to walk a race, that's fine, but don't do it at the peril of the runners behind you.

The first 6 or 7 miles were easy. I was running too fast, that much was certain, but I didn't care. I would just slow down if I needed to. I absorbed myself fully into my playlist. It was carefully crafted especially for this race. It had a couple of slower, less intense songs at the mid-way point so that the end was pure extreme metal intensity. I do recall having enough energy to sing along to Firewind's Set the World on Fire during mile 8. I hope nobody heard me though.

During my training for this race, the point at which my muscles and joints would begin to rebel against my wishes would occur later and later into each run. It was at mile 9 that this point hit me during this race and I slowed down a bit. It was my slowest mile of the race and I found it a bit difficult to resume my earlier pace. But difficulty is a relative term. My trials and tribulations were nothing compared to those of my friend.

The Thursday before I left for Vegas, I got a text from Otis' brother Dr. Jeff. "Mom and I are forcing Brad to Vegas to finish what he started. Take care of him for me." I was surprised, since I thought there was no way Otis would go to Vegas. I was also excited, he was part of our team that trained hard for this moment. That he would be a part of it after all that happened was great news. I was also honored.

Thinking of Otis is all it took for me to resume my race, even as my hamstring throbbed and my ankle ached. Ignore the pain, that's all I have to do. My GPS watch went from an 8:02 pace back to about 7:45. Good enough to set my personal best. My music did the rest.

Until the cramps hit.

I adjusted my stride hoping they'd go away. I ran with more of a flat footed step hoping to minimize the strain on my calves. It seemed to work, until I had to move laterally to pass someone; then they'd begin again. I knew I'd need sustenance, so I forced down another package of something called Gu that I'd picked up at an aid station. "Please be enough to stop the cramps," I begged. I'm not sure how quickly I could digest and process that something called Gu, but perhaps psychologically I convinced myself that it helped.

It didn't, the cramps came back midway through mile 13 and I was really thinking I'd have to walk. I turned towards the crowd for some reason. I can't really explain why I did just then. I'd not looked at the crowd the entire race prior to then. One head stool tall and over those people around him. "Hey, I know him." It was Drizz. I turned and pointed to him, music still blaring through my headphones. A group of about 15-20 bloggers saw me and began to cheer. Amazing. Truly an amazing feeling that will stick with me for the rest of my life. I'm not exaggerating. Fuck the cramps, I'm running through them. Powered by that simple gesture of friends watching and cheering, I crossed the finish line. Not knowing that the chip time was being recorded for me throughout the race, I calculated my finish time by adding song #1 of my playlist to my GPS timer. It came out to roughly 1:41, a personal best by 7 minutes.

To everyone who was there for me throughout the weekend, thank you very much. The race was part of a weekend that redefined what's important to me.

I think the best thing you can do for someone is simply be there when you're needed. You don't have to do much, most people don't need a lot of support. Small, little things matter. A cheer, a hug, a few minutes of converstation, a big bag of Stella....

Any support that's freely and willingly given to a friend is magnified a thousand-fold by its recipient. Trust me.

Exercise - Some Thoughts

I was honored last weekend to be part of a group of runners who dedicated their time and effort to complete the Las Vegas half marathon with me. Many of these folks were running the longest they'd ever run before on that day and they all finished. One of the more common topics of conversation that I overheard afterwards was how being there to cheer on others had motivated them to either resume or begin training themselves. That's outstanding.

So, if I may be so bold, let me relay a few tips to those of you considering beginning a training program, be it running or simply a general fitness routine. Many people start them, and as we all know, not as many people continue with them.



Consistency - This is the absolute, number one thing to remember. Be consistent. Try your best to make working out not something you feel you have to do, but something you want to do. Make it a part of your lifestyle, just like having breakfast. Yes, it takes time and effort; but you don't have to workout every day. Start out slow and get used to the extra things you'll need to do to make working out easier, i.e. the extra laundry you'll need to do, the extra packing you'll need to do each morning before you go to work.

(Tip: If you work out after work, DO NOT go home first. If you think you'll head home after work and then go back out to the gym, you'll highly likely not make it. Go straight from work to the gym, and then go home.)

Plan is a plan - Find someone to help with your plan. A co-worker who works out, a trainer at the gym, hell, you can even email me if you want and I'll answer as best as I can. But remember this - it's just a "plan." You may have to deviate from it at times, so don't EVER get discouraged because you either missed a short-term workout goal, regressed in your training a step, or flat-out missed a work out. Make concessions in your plan so that you'll have a back up. Shorten your workout if you need to, a shorter one is better than none at all. Switch off-days if you need to. If you have to miss a workout, make it up on one of your rest days. Even if you flat out miss a week or longer due to travel, do NOT give up. Understand that it's a small step backwards, but you're still on a plan to move forward.

Coming Back from a break - To me, this is the NUMBER 1 cause for people to fall off the work out wagon. Look, you'll get sick. You'll have unexpected travel. You will miss a workout, even several, through no fault of your own. You need to find the mental discipline to resume your program after a break. It's very mentally discouraging to make good progress by being consistent for months at a time and then see it diminish because you're missing workouts. So what? Get back to the gym as soon as you can. It's difficult, I know. Just don't quit.

Enjoy - You should really at some point look forward to working out. It shouldn't suck. If it did, who would ever do it? Find something to make it fun. Honestly, healthy, physically fit people are fun to look at in tight clothing. I'm a male pig, and seeing a nice young woman in tight workout clothes is a motivator to me. I'm sorry. It's because I'm a pig. I understand that. If you're lucky enough to have a friend as a workout partner, that can make things enjoyable too. When GRob and Otis began doing long runs on Saturdays with me these past few months, it made a mundane run very much something to look forward to.

Compare you to you - Lastly, don't ever compare yourself to someone else. You're not them. You don't have their genetics, you don't respond to training like they do, you don't process foods the same way they do, you're not their age, you're simply not them. Everyone can find someone more fit than they are. I can find tons of guys stronger, faster (Dan), more lean, more proportional, more everything. Don't let that keep you from working out. Keep a log if you can, and in a year, compare yourself to what you were doing a year prior. You'll be amazed at YOUR progress. You get to keep it and nobody can take it away from you. Think about that.

If you decide to do something with respect to working out, start today. Don't wait for January 1st. Do it today. There's nothing stopping you. And if you choose to do something, consider how lucky you are to be able to. Dan's advice to us runners this year is the best advice I've ever had. "Consider how lucky we all are to be able to run today." There are millions of people who can't.

John Arch

Can a single song make you a legend? In some instances, yes. As long as you define legend within a particular community.

Perhaps some of you have heard of the band Fates Warning. Back in the mid-eighties, they were the definition of progressive metal. They were Dream Theater before there was Dream Theater. With one EP and two full length albums, aptly titled The Spectre Within and Awaken the Guardian, they had solidified themselves within a niche and they had no equal.

Their vocalist was extremely talented and also extremely unique. You either loved his style or you didn't. I fell into the former category and the song that sealed it for me was the one that sealed it for many others too. The track Guardian from Awaken the Guardian remains a song that will forever have a place in my heart and soul as sheer metal genius. Here it is:



Inexplicable, at least to me, Fates Warning changed vocalists after Awaken the Guardian. Not that I disliked John Arch's replacement, it was still with some disappointment that I'd not hear more sweeping, melodic vocals from him. Ray Alder proved to be excellent in his own right, but the distinctive timbre of John Arch was gone.

As a reference, here's the first single from Fates Warning's No Exit album featuring Ray on vocals. It's good, but it's different.



Fast forward 25 years. After an EP called Twist of Fate in 2003, John Arch has once again rejoined most of the members of early Fates Warning and released Sympathetic Resonance with Jim Matheos. I immediately purchased it upon hearing the familiar vocals. It's like John Arch never left.

Prevail

I'd just run 4.7 miles out of 6.2. I was giving the race 100% of my effort. But I knew there was a hill coming. It was the hill I had run down to start the race and the return trip was certainly going to be difficult. Still, I put my head down and pushed forward.

I saw some lights. It was an intersection that looked just like the place where the race began. The start of the race, the end of the hill. I couldn't see my race watch, this was a night race, so I had no idea how long I'd been running back up the hill.

I approached a street light, it was bright enough to illuminate my watch so I could see the numbers. I looked down expecting to see 6.0 miles and mentally prepared myself for the last 0.2 miles of downhill sprinting towards the finish line.

My watch said 5.5 miles.

Not 6.0.

It was crushing. Pain tightened in my left side. Stitches, they call them side stitches. It's like a cramp, but not really. They do hurt though. I was slightly demoralized knowing I had another half mile to go up the hill.

Another street light came. 5.72 miles on the watch. I had a half mile to go and I wanted to beat my previous time. It was at this point I knew I was going to need some help.

I unlocked my iPod nano. I skipped directly to this song on the playlist. I then lost myself in a sea of effort, pain, drive, and focus. If you've ever been to that place in your mind, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, I simply can't explain it. I crossed the finish line at 46:00 even, propelled by the crushing sounds coming through my headphones.

Everyone ends up dead. It's just a matter of when.

The Anger Phase of Denial

It's all over the major poker news sites, but in case you hadn't heard, the Alderney Gaming Commission suspended the license agreement they had with Full Tilt Poker and as such, Full Tilt Poker is no longer operating. Whether they choose to reopen with another license or reopen without one at all is still unclear at this time.

My real reason for posting this is to ask a question. Who knew this was going to happen and when did they know it? This applies to BOTH the events of today and to those of Black Friday when the USDOJ forced Full Tilt, Pokerstars and UB/AP to close their doors to the American public.

In my opinion, there are pieces of data that when added up together, point to the conclusion that there were some people that knew in advance that there was trouble ahead.

My hypothesis is this:

Even though the documents were sealed, someone had inside knowledge up to a year in advance that the 3 major sites would eventually get shut down for US-based players. As such, several short-term money grabs were put into place for this eventuality. After all, if your long-term business model becomes unviable, then get as much out in the short-term as you can.

- Both Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth do NOT have their contracts renewed with UB.com prior to Black Friday. Coincidence? Maybe.
- Full Tilt Poker introduces Rush Poker. While certainly fun to play (I put in my hours), Rush Poker is simply an accelerated rake extraction device for the cash game players.
- Full Tilt Poker introduces Multi-Entry tournament options. The notion of having multiple accounts to enter MTT's multiple times becomes a non-issue and Full Tilt earns far more on a per tournament basis than before. Again, this is an accelerated rake extraction device.
- More subtely, but still concerning to me, the electronics section of the Full Tilt store was out of stock for months on their top-tier items. To me, this was concerning because they had no motivation or priority to renew the Apple line of iPods and MacBooks once Apple issued updates.
- After Black Friday, a user on 2+2 named Deuc3s posted the following text:
"Full Tilt will announce its to default on american payements (sic) on 29th of June. Shortly after that they are to close." This again could be coincidence, some fear monger getting lucky with a guess, but the date was exactly correct. This user claimed to be a former employee.

Nowhere in the above do I mention anything about Pokerstars. Why? Well, from what I've seen out of that organization, they've operated with the most integrity and transparency of any online poker company. They've earned my respect and trust even though I'll no longer be able to play on that site ever again.

I'm most disappointed with Full Tilt. They were literally sitting on a gold mine and managed to fuck it up. That takes a unique combination of incompetence and greed to achieve. Worse yet is to think of what all our rake went towards. Hundreds of millions of dollars in rake went to a few dozen pros and company executives who right now don't give a rat's ass what happens to their former customers.

Tom Dwan, Durrr, based on his Twitter feed seems to be the only active and reasonable voice thus far, but even he can't do much for the player base currently holding an empty bag. If it comes to light that some of the players like Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson were making significant day to day policy decisions for that company, then I'll be even more angry than I am now.

My $4000 is gone and highly likely gone for good. I no longer care about that because there's nothing that I can do about it. What I want now is justice. I want these incompentent, greedy fools to do jail time. The worst thing you can do to me is take advantage of me. And that's exactly what has happened. Yes, I'm an adult and chose to play on Full Tilt while I could. I received rake back, I received advertising dollars and I willingly wore FTP branded hoodies and t-shirts. But that was because I trusted that my money was safe on the site.

Every last one of the Full Tilt Pros should be ashamed right now for associating themselves with a company who effectively scammed tens of thousands of poker players and enthusiasts who bought into their hype. They lived the high life, getting paid millions with not only the rake we willingly generated, but also with our deposits. I was stolen from and I'll never forget it.

I look forward to these cowards and thieves claiming ignorance, that they did not know the details and inner workings of the company's accounting practices. Sorry, I don't care and that's no excuse. I've held off from being angry for months, trying to give Full Tilt the benefit of the doubt.

That's the last thing I'll give them.

(I can't remove my FTP ad from here at work, but it will be the first thing I do when I get home.)

Running to Metal

I signed up for the Las Vegas Half Marathon on December 4th. It's a Sunday, the race is at night and it goes down the Strip. Pretty cool. Joining me will be G-Rob, Otis, Dr. Chako and Poker Peaker. It will be kick ass. Not unlike the new metal I got to download due to me signing up. It is after all, a Rock 'n Roll marathon.

My 5 free downloads were:

This riff seriously destroys:


This was Slayer's opening at Big 4:


Cool opening riff, cool video if not a little campy:


Another big 4 tune:


New In Flames coming soon:


And. And! Bonus song for the folks who need to understand the vocals. Do you hear any Blue Oyster Cult in here? I kind of do.