Filed under: Austin, events, Heath + Beauty, lifestyle, personal, running, sports, travel | Tags: 10 mile run, austin half marathon, Austin half marathon course video, austin marathon, half marathons, Mexico, Puerto Vallarta, running, Town Lake Trail, training for a half marathon
I am supposed to be packing my bags for Puerto Vallarta right now. I innocently dropped in on the interweb to check up on logistical things like, “How much does it park to cost at the South Austin Ghetto Terminal?” and, “Just HOW perfect will the weather be in Mexico this weekend?”. Suddenly an hour had passed and I’d invited all of my family to join my family tree on facebook, had watched the half-marathon course video & had read all about Sam Lufti suing Britney & her dad on people.com (guilty pleasure).
So now I’m going to blow another hour with a short & sweet update on my half marathon training progress. Besides, it’s not like it’s going to take that long to pack 3 bikinis and some flip-flops, right?
Sunday was my first double-digit long run. 10 Miles. During last week’s 9 mile run I felt really good. Deceptively good. I figured 10 miles would be nuthin’.
Boy, am I an idiot! 10 Miles was rough. It didn’t help that this was the first long run that I monitored my pace. I was hoping to complete the Town Lake Trail (all of it) in 1:30:00 (9:00 mile pace). I thought that carrying a watch would be fun, informative, inspirational. Instead, it turned me into a mile marker vulure and tricked me into performing lots of odd mathematical calculations between posts. By the end both my brain and my body were exhausted. If I made it to a marker on time, I was thrilled and my feet seemed to soar above the trail. But if I’d encountered hills or traffic and had fallen behind, I was crushed. From there on I noticed every hurt, every weak stride and every labored exhale. Running with a watch turned me into a little whiner.
In the end I finished the 10 just a smidge off my goal time – in 1:33:30. I still haven’t decided if I will wear the watch on my next (and last) long run: a 11 or 12 miler on Sunday.
In other race-related news, I found out today that the Austin Half & Full Marathon was voted “Greenest race in America” by Runner’s World in 2008 and that they’ve stepped up their efforts this year to be even more green! I was really excited to see that they’re going to be composting food waste at the finish line, and that HEB will not be providing any items in styrofoam. Yay for physical AND environmental health, all in one!
That’s it for my update. Now I leave you with this – my inspiration to log off of the interweb and dig my swimsuits out from the depths of my chest of drawers. Beautiful, isn’t it?:
Filed under: events, sports | Tags: bcs championship, bcs rankings, big 10 football, big 12 football, college football, joe pa, Penn State football, penn state loss to iowa, pennsylvania sports, phillies, rose bowl, sec football
JoePa is also frustrated by the Penn State loss yesterday.
A week ago, things were looking good – REAL good – for competitive Pennsylvanians. Phillies had won the World Series, Obama had won the electoral votes, and the state’s public university had exceeded all expectations by creaming the Ohio State Buckeyes. I couldn’t have been more proud of the homeland.
But then along came the second Saturday in November, which will now be referred to by Penn State fans as “the day that our BCS bowl dreams went to shit”. Everything that needed to happen to keep Penn State on the road to the BCS Championship failed. Yesterday we hoped to see 2 upsets: #1 ‘Bama & #2 Texas Tech. But Murphy’s Law proved itself once again when LSU lost to Alabama, Oklahoma State lost to Texas Tech and horror of all horrors, #3 Penn State lost to unranked Iowa.
In the rare moments during Penn State’s afternoon game when I didn’t have my eyes shielded from the tv screen, I saw our team playing one person: Derrick Williams. Everyone else seemed to have left their jock straps in State College for the weekend.
It was a crushing loss, no doubt. But it’s also fair to say that Penn State was over-ranked. Personally, I’d rather see us go to the Rose Bowl and do well than go to the Championship and get our asses whooped with millions of football fans watching. Big Ten versus Big 12 is a whole different type of ballgame, not one that I’m positive we’d win. In the upcoming seasons it’d be great to see Penn State play an early game with a Big 12 or SEC team – our boys in blue may have something to learn from the experience.
Filed under: entertainment, events, family, sports | Tags: bandwagon fans, chad ogea, fairweather fans, nittany lion football, Penn State football, pennsylvania teams, philadelphia phillies, philly phanatic, world series
A lot of good has been happening in my home state this fall. In honor of their recent success, I’d take a minute to cheer for the home teams in a 2-part series: the Philadelphia Phillies and the Penn State Nittany Lion football team.
The Phillie Phanatic, formerly known as, "The Only Worthwhile Reason to go to a Phillies Game"
Philadelphia is notorious for it’s fair-weather fans. I grew up in the 80′s with a distinct lack of respect for the Philadelphia Eagles & the Phillies, in spite of living an hour outside of the city. My family drove down down to see Baltimore Orioles games more often than Phillies games – partly because they had a way cooler stadium, but also because we were all of the opinion that Philadelphia teams flat-out stank. A friend of a friend, Chad Ogea, who played pitcher for the Phillies back in the late 90′s, has confessed that he couldn’t take his family out in public for fear of what disgruntled Philadelphia fans do or say in front of his two little girls . Not a very loyal fanbase, eh?
Boy, how times change! A few weeks ago when I flew home to the ASLA meeting, I couldn’t help but notice the number of people sporting the Phillies gear. At no point in time did I think it was because the team was actually doing well, I just figured it was another fashion fad that centered around sports, jerseys and sleazy nightclubs. This past Saturday night my own mother, who found out about the Phillies success just in time to jump on the wagon, stayed up till 2am to watch the end of game 3.
The World Series may be about to end (and with a Philly win, we bandwagon Pennsylvanians hope!), but the end of Pennsylvania’s winning streak isn’t over yet. Stayed tuned for Part 2 of the “Phantastic year for Pennsylvanians” series, in which I plan to write about another winning Pennsylvania team who, in contrast to the Phillies, has a very loyal fanbase - the Penn State Nittany Lions football team.
