My First Half Marathon

Late February I took my first painful steps to a healthier life, got my shoes on and went for a very slow mile, "ran" the first few feet thinking I would do one quick mile then go home , but my body decided to only go for about 30 seconds then came to a sudden stop.

I looked back towards my house wanting to go back, hacking and gasping for air I flailed my arms about and kept walking hoping that would make it look more like a scheduled stop in my warm up routine , after a few minutes I took off again , this time a lot slower and a lot more aware of all the extra me jiggling and bouncing with every step, 24 minutes later I was back home, humbled and ashamed I noted my time for that first mile and took a shower.

The next day I went out again and again but my knees were killing me after that first week, I was running on very flat sneakers , after some browsing online I found out about the barefoot movement , I live in dirty Downtown so barefoot is not really an option for me but saw an add for Vibram shoes and looked them up , I got a pair the next week and felt the difference almost immediately.

I walk barefoot in my house all the time, My wife is a strictly no shoes in the house type of girl and well, whatever she says goes ;) so no shoes  indoors for me for the past 5 years but turns out , it came pretty handy making the transition to the Vff's , I wore them for a whole mile the first time and never looked back, month later I ran a 5k on them then a few weeks later I went 4 miles,  last week I did a 10k and felt great so then yesterday I went out for a full 13.1 miles

of course I am aware of the  "only increase your distance 10% at a time... but .. anyway

I went the first 8 miles just amazed at the fact that I was doing it, around  the 9th mile, Pacific coast Hwy. looses the sidewalk and I was forced to go on a dirt trail and it felt pretty good I was almost all the way back to were the sidewalk starts again when I kicked up some dirt and picked up a small, tiny, tiny , tiny pebble, it was tiny but it went straight into my shoe and  I felt it poking and rubbing around the ball of my foot until it went between my toes, by then I knew there was going to be a blister coming out soon and by mile 10 there it was , right on time to give me a decent excuse to quit but I was almost to the end and I was doing a good time and I figured I was going to be in pain today either way so I kept going, I got up the steep incline to the beach path and a lady coming down yelled at me " keep it up, you almost there" delirious or just wanting to tell someone how far I've gone I yelled back " this is my 11th mile 2 more 2 more ! she opened her eyes wide open and yelled as she passed me " way to go , you got this !!".

Oh man , that gave me that extra boost i needed and made it all the way to my road marker, but i didnt want to go home and find out I only ran 12.something so I went an extra 10 minutes, then called my wife to come pick me up hehehe . 

when we got home I went on racekeeper and plotted my run , it came out to 13.48 , I am calling it a half a marathon and this will be my base  

13.1 miles  in 3 hours 

We ran the Revlon 5k in our Vibram shoes

This was the first time she joined me on a 5k, we did a few training runs around our neighborhood but mostly we stuck to walks and a lot of bike rides. We wore our fivefinger shoes and yes matching sweat pants 

It was great to run with her !! love you babe! !!

 

We got there a little early , most teams had a meeting point in the stands but our team didn't register so we headed out to the starting line , which turned out to be better, since there wasn't a lot of people there  we got to go almost all the way to the front. We got to see the announcers up close and we were quick to get started, some of the other people on our team took up to an hour to get to the starting line. I think they were expecting about 45000 people I wouldn't be surprised if there were thousands more than that.

Running in to the Coliseum was awesome!!!

Once we got to the tunnel we all knew it was so close to the finish line and no one could contain their excitement hootin and a hollerin we all tiredly ran in, fist pumping,  for a few moments became cool again.

We got our lunch bags and water and went up to the stands to watch the rest of the runners trickle in 

Every now and then We would muster our meek sounding YEAY for all those crossing the finish line 

Hey they even got our bodies perfectly portrayed up by the entrance !

CAO Gold

CAO Gold
Originally uploaded by nopantsboy

smoked a CAO gold while waiting to get dark enough to watch a movie at the drive-in (one of only 2 left here) if you were to ask me how the movie was i couldn't tell you but this cigar left a very good impression on me, I will keep them on stock from now on , hey even after driving with it all day and leaving it inside a very hot car for a few hours i was able to enjoy it with very minimal unraveling and only a tiny crack on the wrapper , by now you have probably guessed this is not a review on the taste of the cigars , i could tell you about the "earthiness" and "ooh there was a chocolaty lingering essence " bullshit type of reviews you'll get everywhere else , but taste is subjective and we all have opinions so instead i give you a recommendation on the ones i like and basically if i have taken the time to take the picture then it means i like it enough to try to remember it , I have poor memory some say I have no memory, the wife says i only remember our anniversary because there is a picture with a date stamp on it , everyone who knows me will agree that i am going to make a very interesting old man talking to myself in the nursing home , i will probably have a cigar in my wrinkly old hands and it will probably be one of the ones on this blog, unless i forget i wrote this .

Down Yonder

Some folks come a told me they saw my pa' runnin hooch out the back porch, but daddy was no hooch man, pa done had his moment of clarity and quit bending the elbow long before that old river gone dry iself' (,so my mama says.) now see he'a, i gots to splain' daddy did high tail'd it out of his compromises when i was a spring chicken and thats why i had to go see meself bouts that shed, see if the story they was selling was worth to buy, but when i done got there all was left is the groans of the abandon'd and the smells of the gone , but yous know thats my cross to bear, that it matter none to me if it sounds like the fabrication of a mean spirited person, all i have to hear is that they done seen a man with a silver toof and a gimp to his step pullin tricks on other folks and iam gone long before they finish tellin me the particulars, just like right now, i done heard theres a feller buyin silver for gold and they say he walks like a pimp so i got to go