Cannonball Half Marathon

On Saturday I completed my4th half marathon, the Cannonball Run in Greensboro, NC. It was a fantastic day, and I'll post pictures soon. In many ways it was my favorite of the 4 halfs I've done, in some ways not.

The worst part was that we got there late, so I missed the starting gun. By the time I got there they had already rolled away the mat for the timing chip and I couldn't even see the last person anymore! They told me where the course went I just started running. I eventually caught someone, and pretty soon was passing a bunch of people. It was a stressful start, but it was also so relaxing to not have to fight through a crowd of people to get into a rythm.

The course was exceptionally beautiful and I enjoyed savoring every moment of the first few miles.

My goal was to finish in under 1:59:55, the average time for all half marathoners in 2007. To do that I would basically need to maintain a 9min per mile pace, which over 13.1 miles would be difficult but doable for me. I only started running 2 years ago, never having run track or anything in school, so this is all still somewhat new to me and I know I'm not very fast compared to most people my age/shape, but it's great to see that improving. In May 2007 I did the Ottawa Half Marathon in 2:25 (weighing around 197lbs at the start of training and 189 at the end). In February 2008 I ran 2:09 in the Myrtle Beach Half, weighing 181 at the end. Two months later I ran the Raleigh Half in 2:07, weighing 179. My best 13.1 mile run in training has been 2:05.

5 miles into the race I felt really strong at 44 min (just under 9 min pace), and was confident I could get under 2 hours. At mile 8 I was still feeling really strong, running consistently between 8:50 and 9:10 min/mile. Even at mile 10 I felt like I was certainly going to contend for 2 hours, as I was at about 92 min. I had told myself that if I could get to 10 miles in around 90 minutes, then I would have a full 30 to do the last three, meaning I could run 10 min/mile the whole rest of the way.

Then mile 11 and it's big hill hit. Ugh! It just seemed to keep going and going. There weren't enough water stations. My legs threatened to start cramping up. I stopped noticing what song was on my ipod. I stopped and walked. I kept pushing, but could feel that my legs might start cramping up at any moment and that pretty soon I'd be on the ground unable to walk. I wished I had done a couple more long runs during training.

We turned back into the park near the finish line and I still hadn't seen the 11 mile marker and my mind was playing serious tricks on me. I eventually saw the 12 mile marker, but by then it was 1:55 and 2 hours was out of the question. I still felt like I could break my personal record of 2:05, but not knowing my way around park, I got real discouraged to see another uphill every time we turned a corner. Not knowing how close I was, and really afraid of cramping up, I started walking. Little did I know the finish line was just around the corner! Once I started to hear the small crowd (ony 350 did the race, so there weren't very many spectators), I ran the last 100 meters or so and felt pretty proud to be done.

My final time according to my stopwatch was 2:06:40. My time from the firing of the starting gun was 2:10:12, but remember that I was THE VERY LAST person to start, a full 3 minutes after everyone else. So I didn't meet my goal of 1:59:55, I didn't break my record from training runs, but it was my personal best in an actual race, so I guess that's something to be proud of, right?

This put me in 235th place out of 354 overall, and 15th out of 26 in my age group (25-29).

Article in the Chapel Hill News

When Mayor Foy proclaimed October to be "Go! Chapel Hill" month in Chapel Hill, in honor of the organization I've recently started volunteering with, I thought it would be a great opportunity for the local newspapers to run articles on the importance of physical activity and having a healthy lifestyle. When I suggested this to the Chapel Hill News they offered to have me write 4 short weekly columns during the month of October. I've written newspaper columns before for the politicians I've interned with, but this is the first time I'm publishing under my own name. It's pretty fun.

Here's the article published in last weekend's Chapel Hill News (circulation 22,000). This week I'll be writing about the relationship between physical activity, the economy and the environment.

In case you can't read that, here's the full text:

Mayor Foy recently proclaimed October “Go! Chapel Hill Month” and encouraged everyone to incorporate physical activity into their daily routines.

Go! Chapel Hill is an organization formed with a 5 year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to promote ways to do this. As a jogger who has had his share of near-misses, I know that being active has wonderful health benefits, but isn’t always safe. Although Chapel Hill has many beautiful greenways and sidewalks, many improvements are still needed.

One example is how difficult it is for pedestrians to cross Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Bus stops, businesses and apartments are often far from nearby intersections, prompting many to brave four lanes of traffic every day. The Town recently announced that new crosswalks will be built on MLK, such as one connecting the Shadowood Apartments to the bus stop across the street. This is a great step.

Building crosswalks is simple and relatively inexpensive, and more are needed on Chapel Hill’s busiest streets. In a month devoted to active living, this is particularly important, as few things encourage physical activity more than making sure it’s safe.

Canadian Election

Most Americans don't realize, but ours isn't the only major election happening right now. Canada votes for Prime Minister & Parliament in less than 2 weeks on Oct 14th. Because of the parliamentary system, the election was only called a month or so ago. The American campaign has cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of almost 2 full years, while the Canadian campaign costs significantly less and lasts just over a month! Of course, they're constantly in campaign mode, wondering when the elections will be called.

What do I think will happen? What do I want to happen? I can't vote in the election, so it doesn't really matter, but as an intern in the House of Commons in the fall of 2006, I had the unique opportunity to spend time with many of these leaders and watch how they operate up close, so I'm very interested in how things play out. I've stood in a scrum of reporters just 2 feet from Stephan Dion (leader of the Liberal Party - the man on the right), Jack Layton (leader of the New Democratic Party - in the middle) and Gilles Duceppes (leader of the Bloc Quebecois, not pictured), and just about every other national leader except Stephen Harper (the Prime Minister - on the left). I've been around him a number of times though, attending question period, etc, but he was less acecssible (rightly so) than everyone else.

I was always particularly impressed with Dion as someone who is passionate and sincerely interested in the issues, not to mention incredibly intelligent. I'm not sure he's a natural fit for the position, and would be someone everyoe across Canada would be confident about having as their leader right now. Even if he somehow wins, it'll be a minority government, and it'll seem like the conservatives will be itching to go to the polls as soon as they can.

On the other hand, I worked for a Conservative Member of Parliament (Rob Merrifield) and got to sit in on a lot private strategy sessions, so I feel I have a sense for how that party operates as well. I really enjoyed my time with him and found him and his staff to be extremely impressive. By and large I was impressed with everyone else too, but some people had surprisingly little depth of knowledge or interest in some key issues, and were much more likely to oppose/support something purely on ideological grounds with no clear reasoning other than "it's what the minister's office wants." If I had worked up close with another party I probably would have had the same impression. Perhaps that's the nature of federal politics. That being said, Harper always impressed me as intelligent, consistent, and having sharp political instincts.

I was largely impressed with the sincerity and intellect of individual members of the Bloc Quebecois (a party devoted solely to advocated Quebec's interest and autonomy), though I think the foundation of their party is incredibly weak and somewhat self-serving. They always want independence and special rules for Quebec, but always push for the maximum federal dollars as well. I don't think you can have it both ways...

The NDP and Green Party are full of good people, but don't have a broad enough platform to gain significant support. Even still, I think Jack Layton is an effective leader for the NDP and is the source of some most memorable quotes.

My prediction: Conservatives win a minority government, liberals have a new leader very soon, Green party wins at least 1 seat (not many more), and the new government doesn't last 2 1/2 years.

To see previous posts about my internship in the Canadian Parliament, check out post about: giving my dad a tour, a typical day in Oct 06, Dion takes over Liberals in Dec 06, and holiday dinner in the Parliementary restaurant,

Phish Reunion

PHISH HAMPTON 2009 from Phish on Vimeo.

After 5 years of not playing, Phish announced this morning that they're getting back together for a weekend of shows in Hampton, Virginia. I won't go into all the details, but Hampton is a particularly famous venue in Phish lore, so this is very fitting. The announcement came by way of this video being posted on their website at 3am this morning! (No I wasn't awake to see it that early). I heard about it by 9am, and quickly signed up for the lottery to get tickets. The Hampton Coliseum only seats 13,000, and I'd expect at least 30,000-50,000 people to try to get tickets, so I'm not counting my chickens until they hatch. To give you an idea, at 10am I decided to look at hotels just out of curiousity and found that virtually EVERYTHING within 10 miles was booked already.

In case you can't figure out what the guy in the video is drawing, here's a picture of the venue: