Half Marathon Race Report

Without much re-write, I'm just reposting an email I sent to Peaker about my half-marathon this past Saturday. Here's the GPS watch data in case you're interested:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/54888798

And then here's yours truly at about mile 12.5, not looking as pained as I thought I'd be:

http://picthescene.com/wp-content/gallery/spinx-runfest/oct-29-30-174.jpg

Alrighty then, here's my race recap, 2 days later.

Couple of thoughts that are specific to me:

1.) Taking an entire week off from running before a race really works for me. A ton. My legs feel fresh and ready to go, blisters are healed, and I just don't feel dinged up at all. I'll probably continue this tradition since I'm 2 for 2 in surpassing my goals using this, shall we say, "technique."

2.) Carb-loading also works for me. Had noodles for lunch on Friday and pasta for dinner. By Saturday morning, I felt bristling with energy. Kind of like blue-plasma lightning wrapping my body as though I were Kyle Reese having just been transported back to 1984...

I woke up Saturday and thanks to a spoonful of cilium fiber the night before, went to the bathroom immediately. Glad to get that out of the way. You know exactly what I mean. Lathered up my nipples and groin area with body glide, put on blister band-aids where I needed them and suited up.

I toasted up an English muffin, spread some peanut butter on it and had it along with a banana for my pre-race meal. Also had a cup of coffee. Drove the wife to the meetup location and walked about a half mile with Otis and his wife to the starting location at the Greenville Drive stadium.

Went and peed. Dropped my bag off and filled my water bottles with a G2 Gatorade, the post-recovery one with protein and some non-sugar carbs. Can't remember the exact name. Hung out for a bit, stared at several tight pants of my co-competitors. Jesus, some women runners are in fine shape. 15 minutes before start time, went to pee again. More than I did the first time, but not a surprise. Felt good. Gave my wife a kiss and made my way into the starting crowd behind the start line.

"Fast runners" concerned with gun time to the right and everyone else to the left. I went left, this race was for me and everyone else was just a distraction. Almost forgot to turn on my GPS watch, but remembered just in time. Got the ipod ready, turned to Broken, Beat and Scarred. That was the song that randomly started out my 10k and I saw no reason to change that for this race. The MC counted down from 10 and the gun went off. It took me 13 seconds to get to the starting line - I pressed start on the watch and went.

It was so crowded and everyone was jockeying for position. I felt a pang of worry and then logically came to the conclusion that I was 2 minutes into a 2 hour race and I should just relax. I focused my efforts on not tripping or colliding with anyone. I feel like I know what my pace/exertion level is and I tried to dial into that zone immediately. That's code for "take it slow" at the beginning.

I'll be honest - I was feeling great. And in the back of my mind was the following plan: If you look at the elevation plot of the course, the first 8.5 miles looked to be pretty easy. I was going to go at a slight notch above my training pace and see how I felt along the way, ever mindful of the potential need to slow it down.

That need never came. In fact on mile 8, I was feeling super-strong. I was high on adrenaline or endorphines or something. The songs on my ipod were hitting me perfectly and I was cruising. That 7:57 mile was the result.

Then I saw the hill. The one at mile 8.5 I knew was coming. My legs felt strong, so I just climbed and climbed with my head down refusing to drop my pace. Passing people on this hill felt great. Watching some folks walk the hill made me feel great too. Mile 10 was slightly up hill too, but I knew if I could keep it up, I could just gut out the final 3 miles.

At the 12.6 mile mark, I set my ipod to hit Himsa's "Hooks as Hands" song. It's 4 minutes long and I was going to finish before that song did. I got close to the stadium, the end of the race has us run inside the ball field around the warning track for .1 miles and cross the finish line near home plate. Pretty cool. There were a bunch of folks cheering the runners along outside the stadium.

Oddly, I didn't feed off their energy at all. I was in my BadBlood-zone, metal, exercise, focus, alone. Only when I rounded the 3rd base side of the inside of the stadium and saw my wife, Otis and MrsOtis cheering me along did I come out of it. I crossed the finish line and felt outstanding. I felt a ton of pride in doing as well as I did, but I tried to focus on the accomplishments of my wife and friends who competed in their first event ever. I don't really like to be the focus of accolades, however, I will admit to feeling pretty good at everyone congratulating me.

1:48:21

Full Tilt on my Droid

Well this is guaranteed trouble. Because it works.

I was perusing the 2+2 forums, specifically the Internet Poker subforum when I noticed a thread entitled "Beta Testing Rush Poker Mobile." Being the cutting edge guy that I am, I followed the instructions to contact FTPSean via personal message and give him the required information so I could participate in the testing.

My Motorola Droid 1 wasn't on the list of supported phones; however, I had the 2.2 Froyo update with the Flash 10.1 software installed. My guess is that the early Droid I had may not be fast enough CPU-wise to contend with the Flash software requirements. Still, I figured I'd try.

And like I said, it works.

I logged on and was brought to the lobby of Real Money Rush tables. I opened a table and away I went. To be fair, the interface seems decent and intuitive. However, I was playing over the Verizon 3G network, not WiFi, so I did time out a couple of times, perhaps in the neighborhood of 5% of the hands. Once you get used to the bet slider however, you can reduce the time it takes to make the proper bet size and my time outs reduced in frequency.

Would I play for serious money on my phone at this point in time? Probably not. But will I grab a few hands at lunch at work every now and then? Probably. OK, definitely. OK, every day. Alright, even in the bathroom, and maybe while driving, JESUS I'M ADDICTED!!!!111!!!one!!one!!!

Well, you get the point. The software is in Beta right now and I'd say based on its initial implementation, Full Tilt is going to have another winner on its hands with this. All kneel to the rake machine and submit to its control.

30 hands and 0.44 buy-ins. SHIP IT!!!

When I Die

New, Old, Live

New. The Absence. Tampa via Gothenburg - can you hear the Whoracle-era In Flames in there a bit? I can.

Old. The genius of Devin Townsend coupled with the Atomic Clock Gene Hoglan. Best Love? song ever. There is no external way to tell when a woman is ready to receive.

Live. Arch Enemy. Blood On Your Hands. Sick live vocals if you're into the genre and perhaps one of the tightest live bands too. One day, I'll travel to Japan, get plastered and go to a metal show.

Points in Hockey and Soccer

Each year at the Imaginary Company where I work, we're expected to put together a list of Goals and Objectives that serves as a foundation for our career progress. If you've worked the corporate world for a while, you know how these things work (and don't work). However, the concept of working towards a goal has not been lost on me this past year. Believe it or not, it does have value.

Back in January, I accepted a prop bet with the blogger-turned-frolfer known as G-Rob. Even though a wager was made, it was the acceptance of the bet that led me down a well defined path towards a difficult to obtain objective - running a 10k in under 52:30. I had months to train, and train I did. Throughout the training, I honestly had no idea whether I'd succeed or not. But one thing I did know - I created a plan (with some help) and executed it to the best of my ability. Then on race day, when I crossed the finish line ahead of my target, I accomplished the goal.

Of course I shared the news with anyone and everyone who would listen, but the reality of the situation was that I had done something for myself. It was a feeling of accomplishment that I'd not felt in a long time. I'm really unable to put it into appropriate words.

Not soon thereafter, I felt the need to recapture that experience, the moment of self-satisfaction that occurs when you complete something you set out to do.

****

At the end of this past July, I was on vacation in Florida with the family. Of course, even while on vacation, I always find time to play some online poker. Just like on so many other occasions, while the vacation went extremely well, the online poker play did not. I managed to lose about 16 buy-ins in the $100 PLO games. If you've played PLO, you know that this is not uncommon, but even with that knowledge I grew incredibly frustrated.

I wondered why I was playing, why I was spending so much time with this pursuit. These are questions I'm sure nearly every poker player has asked themselves over the course of their "career."

If I were to answer those questions honestly, what would I do with those answers? Some of the answers may seem ridiculous, lofty even. But they are honest.

I want to be good at the game. Really good.

I want to be a winning player, more so than I am now.

I want to play enough hands each year to determine what my win rate is.

I want to move up in stakes at an appropriate pace.

I want to get better, always get better.

If the above answers could be considered goals, what then would be my execution plan?

****

To me, there are several types of poker players. There is the type of player, a prodigy even, who simply gets the game by playing it. These are the Durrrrs, the Galfonds, the Iveys of the world who for whatever reason have the brain wiring to learn the intricacies of the game by playing it. Obviously I'm not that type of player, and if you're reading this, neither are you.

Then there is another type of player. An intelligent player that misses some of the higher end key concepts of the game; those concepts just go unnoticed because they're non-obvious to all but the most savvy of minds. However, these players can learn these concepts if they are presented to them. Simply, these players can be taught, they can learn. This is the type of player I think I am. And many of you reading this are most likely in that category too.

Another type of player, the type of player I once was, is one that for whatever reason just expects that they're going to good because they once were. Some of the basics came naturally and these basics worked against a player base made up of recreational players. But the game is always changing, and it may have changed without them noticing it. But because this type of player expects to continue to be good, they don't see it and don't adjust.

****

I created a plan for myself. A training plan if you will. I moved my PLO game down 2 levels to the $25 buy-in. For a player with an ego (and that's what we all are), that's a difficult thing to do. Imagine that for a minute. Back in June, I played live $5/$5 PLO in Vegas and did really well. But because I was doing so poorly online, I dropped back to levels where my opening raise was 85 cents. You want to talk about a grind?

I told myself that if I could not win 100 buy-ins at the $25 PLO level, then I really had no business playing. None. But if I thought that my game was substandard, what was I going to do to improve it? Just play? That's not an answer unless you're the first player type I mentioned above. Could I learn some new things? I thought that I could.

I signed up at a training site and watched some instructional videos at deucescracked. I read tons of strategy posts in the PLO section at 2+2. And then I tried to apply what I learned.

****

Setting a running goal for myself was so satisfying that I couldn't help but do it again. What comes after a 10k? Why not at least double that and go for a half-marathon? So that's what I did. I developed another training plan, put it in a spreadsheet and began to execute it.

Every day I've woken up since July 18th, I've known exactly what I'd be doing for my workout, both with weights and with running. The date of my run is October 30th and I've completed over 60% of the training with an 11-mile run planned for Saturday.

It's tough as hell on me. But because I know the feeling of accomplishing something, I continue to work towards that goal. Every day. And it's a grind.

****

I'm almost half way towards my 100 buy-in goal. In just over 7 weeks of play, I'm up 45 buy-ins in about 23,000 hands. It's a good win rate and if I'm being honest, the urge to simply just move up now has crossed my mind multiple times. But each day, when I log into Full Tilt to play, I know exactly why I'm playing and what my strategy is.

I'm not playing just to pass the time away. I'm not playing just hoping to get lucky. I'm playing because I'm on step 1 of achieving a goal I defined for myself when I answered my own internal questions about why I play.

Does every player need to do this? No, of course not. But if you have expectations for yourself that you want to satisfy, maybe setting a goal would help you achieve them. And like I'm doing with running, it certainly doesn't have to be about poker.

What I've Been Listening To

And loving all of it. But that's just me.

Chose or Be Chosen

Some of you folks who've been to the house for a home game have met my buddy John "Falstaff" Hartness. He's another one of my friends who get out and actually do stuff rather than simply talk about doing stuff, like I'm prone to do. Hey, I'm an idea man, but executing upon ideas requires effort and I'm the definition of lazy.

If you weren't aware, John recently self-published a book and I'd like to relay that information to any readers who might be interested in purchasing it. You can purchase it here:

http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=4174880

Here's a shot of the cover which came out pretty decent, in my humble opinion: