Will I Ever Run Again?!?

Topic: The Rain Stopped, Let's Run
Key Words: Monthly Mileage, Circle of Felix, 21 Miler in 17 Miles
Word Count: 387
Tomorrow's Likely Topic: Forget Stocks, Let's Trade Options

Despite her desire to rain continuously, Mother Nature met her match today - Felix Lugo. Any man who runs marathons with a USA flag on an eight foot pole is too bad to mess with, so our Earthly Mother relented on her week long "rain" of terror, and about 15 of us got in our usual Thursday, four mile Felix run. On a funny note, I think Felix has known my face for a while (I've ran in his group of 200 or so marathon trainees for two years), but he never knew my name (he always know the girls, and I haven't always been that social). Though he might forget it by next week, I've made the inner circle of Felix ... he used my name after hearing my introduce myself to a new runner! I'm one of the cool kids now!!

Since I've been talking about "desire to train" and since May is coming to a close, I thought I would document my past mileage and races to keep me honest. I really didn't know what I would find when I looked back at my "shoe mileage" note card (mileage, followed by races in that month):

November - 60 miles; HMSA 25k Classical
December - 81 miles; Houston Fit 30k and Houston Fit 21 Miler (which I managed to complete in 17 miles!)
January - 43 miles; ran, walked, and crawled my third Houston Marathon
February - 47 miles; Rockets Run 5k and Austin Half Marathon
March - 34 miles; Bayou City Classic 10k
April - 47 miles; none
May - 49 miles; Sprint for Life 5k and Race for the Pennant 5k

We start Fall training on June 9th, so most of the Summer needs to look more like November and December than May. I'm basically pleased with these numbers though; hopefully I'll hold up under the coming heat.

Since the month is ending, and since I'm sending a link to the blog to some new people, I thought I would list some of my past post (cause I may be too long winded for you to go back and read them all):

The Start of it All
http://beating-oprah.blogspot.com/2007/05/welcome-what-can-i-do-to-earn-your.html

Financial
http://beating-oprah.blogspot.com/2007/05/cross-training-your-portfolio.html
http://beating-oprah.blogspot.com/2007/05/track-your-dollars-while-you-track-your.html
http://beating-oprah.blogspot.com/2007/05/rent-vs-buy.html
http://beating-oprah.blogspot.com/2007/05/ive-made-moderate-stock-purchase.html

Running
http://beating-oprah.blogspot.com/2007/05/nascar-running.html
http://beating-oprah.blogspot.com/2007/05/357-miles-of-running.html
http://beating-oprah.blogspot.com/2007/05/felix-run.html
http://beating-oprah.blogspot.com/2007/05/im-not-content.html

Friday tomorrow! Finish the week strong!

The Will to Prepare

Topic: Inspirational Thoughts From Gmail
Key Words: Bobby Knight, Shiznit, Flare
Word Count: 342
Tomorrow's Topic: Will I Ever Run Again?!?

I switched to Gmail over one and a half years ago. It's a free email service from Google, and it's basically the bomb shiznit. Word. I'm not sure if their business model is scalable for the long run, but for now, they really seem to be first class innovators. Gmail seems to be their platform from which they expose new feature: ads that "sense" the content of your email, online spreadsheets, online calendars, news readers with a "Google flare", and oh yeah, they also own the site this blog sits on!

So today, I had my Gmail account open at work as usual, and I noticed the top line of ads was, as is sometimes the case, replaced with a quote:

Most people have the will to win, few have the will to practice. - Bobby Knight

Very interesting stuff from old Bobby. No matter your opinions on the man, what he speaks is the truth. If you really want to succeed, you don't just work at it for a while, you work at it constantly. I ate chicken wings and had beer tonight. With good reason mind you, but still, I didn't have the will to practice. The rain is making pure running hard, but the rain doesn't affect the elliptical machine in my apartment complexes gym. And though this afternoon was conflicted, the morning never is; shouldn't I be able to convince myself to get up a few mornings of the week in the name of a leg workout?

Houston Fit's Fall Marathon training program starts next week. I'm proud of my Spring of running, as it is more than I normally do; I am as prepared as I have ever been ... well, to prepare! If I add to this base a strong will to practice, maybe I can get somewhere.

But if not, chicken wings and beer isn't a bad fall back :)

I've made a "moderate" stock purchase

Topic: Runs, Stocks, and My Next Running Medal
Keywords: Church, Moderate Allocation, Allure of Alaska
Word Count: 389
Tomorrow's Likely Topic: Got any ideas?

I was going to run today, but a storm rolled over the city as I was walking out the door. Not sure if it rained, but the lightening was close by; I don't do lightening. It looks like a rough weather week is in store. I hope to run Wednesday and Thursday, mother nature permitting. Yesterday I went to the gym and did a upper body workout, and today I played basketball (my return to the church!) in place of running.

A few posts ago I said I was going to purchase a conservative allocation fund, VWINX. Instead, I made a small deviation and purchased a moderate allocation fund, PRWCX. Moderate allocations, are similar to conservatives in that they try to make some money now, and grow value slowly over time, except they try to do it a bit more aggressively than their conservative cousins. Over the last ten years moderates have returned more value than conservatives, and have weathered the down times about as well. A bit more risky, but I remembered that I'm still 30; I should elevate my risk level. I've had a moderate allocation fund (FPACX) in my ROTH IRA for a while, and I've been pleased. Again, if you've got some nest egg money that you can risk, moderates are a good style of fund.

I just planned my Summer trip with my family to Gulf Shores! Should be a good time, and after last Friday off, I'm looking forward to only a few weeks before another vacation. I still have to decide if I'm going to Alaska in June for the Mayor's Midnight Half Marathon. The good news is, I can get the ticket with my One Pass miles and save about $800. The bad thing is my family trip kind of infringes on the Alaska plans. That infringement combined with being able to wait on the ticket is encouraging me to procrastinate. The allure of Alaska and a new running medal (that's why I do it!), will probably be enough to get me there. Just in case I do, time to get my milage up ....

All About The Benjamins

Topic: Rain, Rain, Go Away
Key Words: Nursery Rhymes, Rock Bands, Saturation
Word Count: 287
Tomorrow's Likely Topic: Northern Exposure

Over the past couple of years I've taken vacation near Memorial Day and basically turned it into a mini-Summer break. Though I didn't plan to match last year's Memorial Day trip to Europe, I did take last Friday off and did plan to accomplish some things. I did, to continue the theme, plan to tell you about it.

Then it started raining. And it never stopped. All weekend. Houston, we are saturated.

One of my favorite rock bands is Breaking Benjamin; they have an Andrew Dice Clay like habit of turning nursery rhymes into songs. One of their best efforts in this category is "Rain, Rain Go Away". Weather like this makes you want to break out music from your favorite musicians, and just listen. While you might hope Breaking Benjamin's nursery rhyme message would actually affect the weather, you know that if it doesn't, you'll catch up on the emails you need to send, you'll probably discover a cool cable station you didn't know you had, and you'll generally veg out and recharge. That's what I did. Other than the run on Saturday morning, I just took the weekend as it came, underachieved, and actually had a fun weekend. I had planned to run today, a sprint workout, all in the hopes of actually getting four runs in this week. Not meant to be though. One of these weeks I'll actually execute my training plan, and run my full number of miles! I need to. I'm guessing Oprah's trainers didn't let her veg on rainy Chicago weekends.

Rent vs Buy

Topic: I'm 30, have a roommate, and rent ... I'm OK with that
Key Words: Inflation, Supply vs Demand, Loose Lending
Word Count: 450
Tomorrow's Likely Topic: What I Did on my Summer Break

Since I've reached my third decade of life, there seems to be lots of concern around the fact that I'm not a home owner. Perhaps I'm just defensive on the subject. Regardless, I thought I would explore the topic, and drive home what I believe to be the only excuse to buy a home.

I think houses are, for next 30 years, crummy investments. Let's just go ahead and get that out in the open. In short, we've just lived through only the second time in history in which housing appreciation outpaced inflation. That fast appreciation was brought on by a supply vs. demand flip-flop caused by shady banks lending to shady people. Since those lending practices have left the economy teetering on the edge of a tumble, I doubt we'll see such loose lending again. Houses will, and should, only appreciate at inflation. The reason? They can't make money. If something can't make money, why would it's value go up more than inflation? The only way would be if supply vs. demand were thrown off; as I've stated, it's only happened twice, and it ain't happening again. This MSN Money article sums it up best.

So you might think I'm saying you shouldn't buy a house. Quite the contrary. I'm just saying you should buy a house when you feel ready. Not for potential financial gain, not for social gain, and not because you think everyone is wondering why you don't have a house (that last one is for yours truly). Buy it because you want it and intend to stay in it for a while. Simple as that.

As for me, I don't want it. Despite nine years in the same city, with the same company, I'm sure I'm on the brink of a change! Well, not really, but just as some people value "owning something big", like a house, I value the limitless freedom an apartment represents versus a house. Also, most importantly, I stay fairly busy. I don't have the amount of free time that I would want to put into my house. I think, for the first time, I might know what would drive me to purchase a house. If I'm right, and that day comes, then hopefully I'll do the right thing, and purchase because I like the house and because I want buy. Like I said before, simple as that.

I'm Not Content

Topic: I Saw Minute Maid, Then I Got Angry
Key Words: Chemical Rush, Dry Mouth, 4AM
Word Count:438
Tomorrow's Topic: Renting vs Buying

I owe you a topic on renting your home versus buying; tomorrow. This morning's 5k begs to be written about.

Yesterday, I said I was content as a runner. I followed that up with staying up until 4AM and taking part in activities that would ensure my back would really, really hurt. Then, I went to go run a 5k at 7:45AM! As I stood behind the start line, I declared that I had low expectations for myself, I was only running for the fun of it.

When I race, I set three goals; it's a habit I think all runners should take to. One goal is the "beat this time if all else fails" goal, then there's the "you should be able to make this time" goal, and finally, the "run of your life" goal. For the 5k those times are 26 min, 25 min, and 24 mins respectively. I fully expected to have no shot at 26 minutes for the above reasons, and ran hard, but not all out, to a first mile of 8:23 and a second mile of 8:21. Then .... I got water and walked. I never do that in 5ks. Ever. You don't really need water in a 5k, but my mouth was dry ... time be damned, I wanted water!

So off I went, to finish the race, and then I saw Minute Maid park; our finish line. At the same time, I became not very content with my effort. I knew I still had a shot at 26 mins, even with the walk break. All the sleep deprivation and back pain seemed to go away; I started picking runners out of the crowd and pushed myself to pass them; I wasn't content to lolly gag, I wanted that time. I reached "I think I'm going to puke" level of exertion right as I crossed the finish line, gathered myself, and checked my watch; I finished in 26:05 .... I'm content with that.

I realized today that although the time goals I set for myself will change, I still need those goals. That rush of accomplishment, even when it's accomplishing something less than your best effort, is probably the chemical reason I got into running; my brain likes that rush. After all, when I ran my best 5k in 23:48, was that any better than the 70 year old completing his 100th 5k in 33:30?

Felix Run

Topic: Felix Run
Key Words: Pimped Out, dri-fit, tempo run
Word Count: 483
Tomorrow's Likely Topic: I'm 30, I rent, and I have a roommate

3.9 mile Felix Run yesterday; suprisingly, it was at a respectable pace. The Felix Run is made up of folks Felix coaches in the Houston Fit marathon training group. Felix was let go from one of the dominant running stores in Houston, and started up with a new store called Finish Strong. Felix says his firing was unjustified, and based on how they fired his wife (they canned her the day after he started work with the new store, said it was a conflict of interest), I believe him. So to support Felix, a group of us gather at the new store on Thursday's and go for a run at Memorial ... and we all just happen to have on Finish Strong shirts! I know that I'm getting pimped out for free advertising, but I do get a new dri-fit shirt out of it, so it seems like a fair trade. Also, even though I don't think Felix knows my name (partly my fault), he's a good guy who puts a lot of energy into his running groups; the right thing to do is to support him.

Despite yesterday's run being a good workout, I really need more variety in my running. The pattern seems to be speed workout on Tuesday, slow to medium Felix run on Thursday, and a long run on Saturday. I need to add some kind of leg workout, and I really need a tempo run; one where you run at a pretty fast clip for some amount of time. I suppose I could make the Felix Run a tempo, but that's not necessarily very social, and that's a big part of the run. I also want to get my mileage for every week up, since I think that's how I will not break down come the later stages of the marathon.

And just as I say I want to add miles ... I'm only running 5k tomorrow! The Astro's Race for the Pennant is tomorrow, and since you get two free Astros's tickets and finish on their field, it's hard to pass up. Jonathan has been waxing philosophical about when to be content as a runner, and honestly, I'm becoming content. I'm happy with my 5K and Half Marathon times, and I'm really more concerned about fun runs, charity runs like Sprint for Life, and noteworthy marathons like Chicago, NY, and London, than I am concerned with new personal records. Still though, there's still one more feather I need in my cap ... I need to beat Oprah. At that point, I can waddle on into my twilight, booking slow times, while adding to my stash of medals, all while having a blast.

Track Your Dollars And Your Miles

Topic: Money Ledger
Key Words: Ledger, Liquid Assets, Adjusting Entry
Word Count: 454
Tomorrow's Likely Topic: I need a tempo run

Yesterday I covered how many miles I've ran since October, and why I do so. Perhaps more importantly, you and I both need to cover the amount of money we have.

At first this might seem simple; look into your checking account, and Yahtzee!, there's the answer. But when I first started doing this over a year ago, I realized I had money all over the place. My main checking account at Bank X, my old account at Bank Y, three online money market accounts, and three CD's in two different places (diversification!). I actually had no idea how much money I saved each month. Sure, I knew my rent, car payment, average power bill, etc., but didn't really know how much I got from the ATM or how much I spent on my main credit card each month.

Quite frankly, I didn't want to know all that stuff. I wanted to keep track of my liquid assets (checking, savings, money market, and CDs) from month to month to see how much I had and how fast it was growing. This allowed me to finally see how my finances changed throughout the year, and most importantly, allowed me to set aggressive savings goals. NEVER did I make a budget. I just knew I saved an average of X a month, and wanted to get to some total six months down the road. If that total was a little over six times what I normally saved in a month (a good goal), it encouraged me to consider purchases and other decisions, if only briefly, before I made them.

Your turn now! Take out some paper (or a spreadsheet if you are so inclined), take out your bank statements, etc., and make a ledger! Most importantly, pick a time of month to do it and stick with that time. Your finances can change a lot from week to week, so you need to be consistent with your timing unless you want wild swings in your totals.

One last thing; if you take out money for something that's an asset, but not liquid (like say a mutual fund), you need to subtract that amount from all previous months. This "adjusting entry" is necessary because you really shouldn't penalize yourself for investing money! Just remove that money from all periods so the months stay on the same basis.

Felix Run tonight, and I am almost certain that I will get new shoes (scary!). I'll cover Felix Runs (and how I'm being pimped by the man) later.

357 Miles of Running

Topic: Time for new shoes
Key Words: Ragged out, Cheating on my brand, Pray for my feet
Word Count: 588
Tomorrow's Likely Topic: The Things I Do For a Free Running Shirt

Man does my left knee hurt! I suppose it might be because I jumped into to long of a speed workout yesterday after not doing one in about a month ... or maybe it's because it is time for new shoes.

Do you run? Has anyone ever asked you how many miles you've ran over some amount of time? No one has ever asked me that, which sucks, because I actually know. In a stroke of supreme anal-ness, I know the exact mileage of my running shoes ... both pairs.

I've just clocked my 203rd mile on my "training pair" of shoes. You see, I bought that pair in October because my old shoes "felt a little old" (aka, we were getting to the nitty gritty of training, and I wanted some new, comfy kicks). I knew they would be close to ragged out come the marathon (200 miles is the low estimate on when kicks do like your Uncle Bob, and overstay their welcome), so I started tracking all my miles, and planned to buy a new pair to run the marathon in. So come December, new pair bought, new pair broken in to the tune of 30 miles, marathon ran in new pair. Since then, I've been alternating the pairs when I run, which is actually supposed to increase their life (gives the midsole more "time to heal" .. who knew a shoe could heal?!?).

So with 203 miles on one pair (now my "biking and casual wear pair") and 154 on the other pair, I realize that I've ran a good number of miles since October 31, 2006 ... 357 to be exact. As this is the first year I did the Austin Half after the Houston Marathon, and certainly the first year I did much Spring training, this is probably the most number of miles I ran in any six to seven month period. Which explains why ...

I'm kind of broken. Left knee, left hamstring, right Achilles ... lot's of stuff aches. This may be due to my mileage, but I think if I'm going to beat Oprah, I have to actually run more; that's the only way I won't break down physically once I get over mile 15 in Chicago. This leads me to wonder if it's time to switch to a new kind of shoe? I've ran in New Balance for the entirety of my "running career" ... feels dirty, like I'm cheating on my brand to consider "someone new". Still, some of my ailments are traditionally associated with problems that certain styles of shoes can fix. Last time I switched shoes, I might as well have wiped my tush with that $90, because my body soundly rejected them (that was the only race in which I've cramped up!). I said I would reveal one of my secrets to beating Oprah, and I suppose this is one of them. If new shoes can squeeeeze a few more comfortable miles out of this old body, it would certainly help in getting under 4.5 hours.

I'll be visiting the shoe store tomorrow for our Thursday evening run. I may be the anxious, but proud owner of some non-New Balance kicks come tomorrow night. Pray for my feet!

NASCAR Running

Topic: Interval Training
Key Words: Fartleks, Track, Church
Word Count: 610
Tomorrow Likely Topic: 203 Miles of Running

When I'm training for a marathon with my running group (the "Yellow Fever" group of Houston Fit ... I've never really liked being named after a disease), Tuesday is speed training day. The idea is simple: run hard for some time, run easy for some time, and repeat. This would be kind of boring if it didn't have a neat name in the running world; it's called a Fartlek. The high school Sophomore in me must point out that you pronounce it "fart"-"lick".

Fartlek. Say it, and try not to smile :)

The origins of fartleks are, as I understand them, Swedish (fatlek is Swedish for "speed play"). Some cool cats from Sweden were training in Colorado and folks noticed that they alternated between running real fast, and running real slow. Though they went real slow when going slow, they never went so slow as to walk. When race day came these cats turned out to be real fast when it mattered; they won their races and the newest rage in training was born. Soon runners everywhere were alternating between fast and slow running and doing a lot of giggling when they told their friends the name of what they were up.

The idea behind fartleking (I think I made up a word!) is that the fast part of the run pushes your body, makes it more efficient. The key, especially for distance runners, is actually the slow part. Your body must learn to recover during this slow phase, because another fast one is on the way. If your body gets real good at this, it can learn to recover in difficult times ... such as a slow mile 20 in a marathon. So ironically, running short distances, and doing so quickly, can be a real asset to marathoners. And obviously, it can be an asset in shorter races; I dropped two minutes off my 5K (3.1 miles) personal best after one Fall of doing fartleks.

I did these funny sounding runs at the Memorial Park asphalt track. I did 8 repeats of 2 minutes of hard running, followed by 1 minute of easy moving. Since the track is about a quarter mile, it was very NASCAR like ... two minutes of left turn, left turn, left turn, left turn, followed by a one minute pit stop! In some ways track running is rough, since it's on a fairly unforgiving surface, and tight turns can irritate your knees, but since I can do just more than one loop in two minutes, it gives me something visual to lock into; this seems to help me push harder.

As a side note, Tuesday night is normally church night ... the night I go to St. Lukes to play basketball. I told someone I was giving up the church for a while, and it just sounded wrong without the clarification about basketball. In the Fall I normally did the speed work and then went and played ball, but I think my church days (again, basketball .. forgive me Lord) may be over. B-Ball is more of a social event for me now, as I don't play in a league anymore, but that is actually what makes it hard to give up. Lately I just haven't been feeling the church like I used to, and it is rough on my body ... maybe with some time off I can enjoy it again. For now though ... no more church on Tuesday nights. Just fart licks.

Fund raising note: $25 dollar donation!

Take care.

Cross Training Your Portfolio

Topic: Crossing Training Your Protfolio with Conservative Allocation Mutual Funds
Key Words: Conservative Allocation, CDs, Nest Egg
Word Count: 694
Tomorrow's Topic: I may never go to the church again

Softball tonight; won both games! AND, I struck out two people in the same inning!! 6-0 on the season, and the beer hasn't stood a chance either. With no running, I'll focus on Oprah's riches, and tell you about a nifty set of stock funds; conservative allocations.

So the first rule in saving is what? Answer: put enough money into your companies retirement plan to get their full match. If they match you dollar for dollar to 6% and you put in less than six, simply put, you're throwing away money. The second rule of saving is one not many people do, and some experts will not even mention; you need to have at least six months worth of expenses in liquid savings. With the ability to live for six months without working you can do several things:

1. Use your six months of expenses to make bail if you screw up big time
2. Tell your boss to stick at the drop of a hat
3. Be able to pay your car loan if you boss tells YOU to stick it at the drop of a hat

But once you get that six months, what do you do? The proper, long term advice, is to drive as much money as possible into your companies pre-tax savings, then max out a ROTH IRA, and then go to Aruba! But some people can't stand to put all that money into pre-tax savings since they know they can't get to it for many moons to come. Though that's generally a bad way to feel (you'll need heat in the old folks home after all!), if you know you'll need the money within a couple of years (house purchase?), of if you would like to push for 12 months of savings instead of 6 (so you can tell the boss, emphatically, to stick it), then you can look to save, outside of pre-tax, more of your money.

But instead of keeping this "beyond six month money" in a money market account or CDs, you should consider a conservatice allocation mutual fund. From the name conservative allocation, you probably shouldn't be shocked to learn this definition:

Conservative Allocations look to long term growth of income and a high and
sustainable level of current income, along with moderate capital appreciation.

In short, these funds look to earn you some money now and make you some long term, albeit modest gains to boot. One of my favorites in this category goes by the symbol VWINX; go to ETrade and enter the symbol VWINX.

If you dig into the numbers, you'll see that over the past ten years, it's lowest, and only negative year was 1999 (-4.14%), its had two other years at under six percent, with six of the ten years being over nine percent.

So why does this matter. If you're looking to keep this extra money just to have it, for the reeeealy rainy day, you shouldn't need it right away; you should take more risk. The conservative allocation funds give you a chance to easily beat CD returns, though not quite match stock returns, but do so at a much lower risk than said stocks. Also, for you pundits out there, these funds are believed to be a good way to weather a bear market, and there are those that think we are heading for just such an occurance.

Best of all, most of the gains come from appreciation, and if you hold the fund for more than two years, you only pay capital gains tax of 15%. Interest off of CDs is going to be taxed at your highest tax rate, probably closer to 28%; you've got to pay your Uncle Sam, but no need to pay him too much.

I don't just preach it, I live it, as I'm about to be a proud owner of some VWINX. I want more than CDs offer, but I'm too afraid the market is setup for a tumble to increase my exposure to pure stock funds.

Let me know if you'd like to discuss. Take care.

Cross Training

Topic: Cross Training
Key Words: Bike, Trail, Taking a Poo
Tomorrow's Likely Topic: Cross Training ... Your Portfolio

Though I should be a good blogger, and only talk about today, I need to set the stage for my normal Sunday training by covering my normal Saturday. And it just so happens that yesterday contains a noteworthy lesson .....

Yesterday morning, like most Saturdays, I joined the a running group called the Knuckleheads (@ 6:30AM!!!) for what I hoped would be a 10 mile run. However, as I was milling about waiting to start, my body told me 10 miles was a bit much, and I mentally settled on eight. So I struck out, enjoying a casual conversation with the Irish wonder, Jake Booth (Jake will tell that he's the oldest runner in our group, and then beat the crap out of your time!). About two miles into the run, I realized what every distance runners hates to realize; I had to poo.

Let's say you're making a cake, and the recipe calls for one cup of "tightly packed flour". You would take out your flour container, and lightly tap it on your kitchen counter top, thereby packing the loose flour into a more dense consistency. Simply put, running can do the same kind of packing ... to your bowels. I suppose I owed my body a BM, and two miles of running was only packing things in; I needed to return to my toilet with haste.

So my eight mile plan turned to six, and I hastily turned onto Waugh to take the six mile route. I finished the 5.7 or so miles in just under 57 minutes. A little slow for such an amazing morning (62 degrees in Houston in May ... unbelievable), but within tolerance ... especially since I had to poo.

So today, like most Sundays, the legs got a break from impact sports by my choosing my normal cross training endeavor ... trail biking! I like to take my Trek 4300 Mountain Bike (orange, War Eagle!) to the Memorial Park trails for a spin. There are two sets of trails; the ones most people use, and the ones where you could crash and die and no one would find your body for weeks! I'm not actually sure the city even knows about some of the more "killer" trails.

When I got to the park I did my usual run down the red course and followed that with a run on the blue. Things went well, so I made my way to my favorite course, the Yellow. Yellow is where I tore my leg up with my pedal back in March (you can still see the damage ... looks like I've got a tiger claw tattoo over my right Achilles), and I'm proud to say that I finally made it through that part of the course with no flash backs and no bailing off the bike!

I then made my way to the death trails, and did something really smart; I didn't ride them. I've only ridden them a couple of times, and really don't understand their layout very well. If I were to wreck bad and have call someone for help (I always carry my cell phone, my keys, and my medical card ... if there were a time I'd my medical card, it would be while biking), I probably couldn't tell them where I was exactly. In short, though I'm sure it would have been OK, it's not the best of trails to ride solo, so I put them off for another day. The funniest part of my two minute death trail stint was the guy walking in the forest who looked SHOCKED to actually see a biker back there!

I ended up on the bike for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Not as intense, from a calories burned perspective as road biking, but the trails give a decent total body workout. The legs got a break from impact, while the leg muscles got some work, and I got some aerobic work too. Most importantly, I got to enjoy what is surely the last reasonably cool, 2007 Spring weekend in Houston.

Softball tomorrow, so no running. Since I talked about cross training my body today, I'll shift to finance, and talk about cross training my portfolio tomorrow!

I think I'll Tivo Oprah tomorrow. Seems like I should. Know thine enemy.

Welcome - What can I do to earn your money?

Thanks for dropping in on my "beating-oprah" blog. First off, before I get sued, I don't hate Oprah nor do I mean "beating" in the most popular dictionary.com definition of the word:

1. to strike violently or forcefully and repeatedly.

I mean beating Oprah in the sense of beating her time in the marathon. You see, I'm a marathoner. Now that I've completed three marathons, I'm proud to wear that badge of stupidity that says "I run 26.2 miles for fun!". Unfortunately, I'm not a particularly fast marathoner; I'm slow for a guy marathoners and would only be an average girl marathoner. My goal is break 4 hours and 30 minutes; the best I've done is 4:39.

Miss Oprah Winfrey, however, has done a bit better. In 2003, Oprah ran her first (and I believe only) marathon, and eclipsed my life long goal of 4.5 hours by pumping those famous legs for an official finish of 4 hours, 29 minutes, and 20 seconds(http://www.oprah.com/tows/slide/200311/20031103/tows_slide_20031103_pd_02.jhtml).

This is all relevant because when you run long, you need a mantra to take your mind off the task at hand. While preparing for my last marathon, I learned that Oprah's time was just the kind of time I wanted to beat, and therefore, this simple mantra became clear:

BEAT OPRAH!

Well, come the day of the 2007 Houston Marathon, I didn't exactly do that. I actually failed by a fairly stunning 17 minutes, though I was struggling with an injury, so we'll say that's to blame! Not long after this last effort, I became aware that Chicago would be holding their 30th marathon and would have over 45,000 competitors. I knew Chicago is regarded as one of the world's best marathons .... I also knew that's where Oprah lives! Though my mantra became a bit longer, it truly had a renewed relevence:

BEAT OPRAH - IN HER OWN HOMETOWN!

My mission seemed simple at this point; train my hinney off, go to one of the flattest courses running knows (flat is good!), hope for cool weather, and blow the doors off Oprah's personal best. Things got a little complicated when, during registration, I clicked an honest looking box, asking an honest little question:

"Would you like to learn about running to raise money for charity?"

While there are several charity 5K races I run, I've never raised money during my marathon running. This was about to change when I received information about the American Cancer Society's (ACS) Charity Runner program at the Chicago Marathon. The idea is simple: raise at least $850 for cancer research. Sure, they give you a running shirt, but it basically just plays on your desire to raise money for charity. As for desire, it's not exactly a secret that I support cancer charities when I get the chance (maybe I'll post why one of these days, but not right now). It is a relative secret that I spent several months this year planning and almost executing a 5K charity run benefiting MD Anderson Cancer Center (I wanted to bring the Terry Fox Run back to Houston, but it wasn't meant to be). So running and charity has been on my brain this year; I quickly signed up to be an ACS Charity Runner.

Which brings us back to Miss Oprah. I could just ask people for donations (and if anyone I work with is reading this, that day is coming :), but really, I want to earn your money. I want you to keep on giving the money you give to other charities, but I want to convince you to add a bit more on the top for the ACS. To earn those precious greenbacks of yours, I'm offering three things with this blog:

1. Details of how I am training to beat Oprah. For the runners out there, you'll get a view of how a seasoned, grizzled, and slow veteran of the marathon game gets into running shape. You'll also learn the secrets that I have never used in my training that I hope will propel me to success!
2. Since Oprah has more money in pocket change than I will ever make in my life, I'm going to use non-running days to post on the topics of personal wealth and finance. As anyone who has ever seen my "retire early" spreadsheet will attest to, wealth and financial planning are a couple of topics that peek my interest ... and I think I know more than many when I speak on the subject.
3. Comedy. Jokes. A barrel of laughs! I know I crack myself up, and I think I can do the same to you. I have some interesting stories and insights to weave into this blog; I think you'll get a kick out of them.

Well, that's it for now. If along the way you learn something from this blog, or just want a lazy way to donate to charity (it just takes a couple of clicks!), I hope you 'll use the donation link on the upper left of this blog to drop a few dollars, euro, or quid into the coffers.

Take care.