Hi, 2007, nice to meet you

Time for my monthly post I guess. First one of 2007! Needless to say blogging more often was not a resolution. I don't believe in resolutions actually, why should I change? I'm already perfect as is! (This would be proof that Jamie does not edit these before I post them, heh heh.)

If I was to have a resolution for this year, it would be for us to be a little more organized. I mean, who sends out their Christmas letter in mid-January? OK, I'm sure we're not the only ones.

One reason for that delay was a trip we took after Christmas to the Willamette Valley. We've been down to Oregon wine country twice before, so this is becoming a bit of a winter tradition for us. Once again this year we stayed at the McMenamin's Grand Lodge in Forest Grove. McMenamin's is an Oregon-based brewery who own a number of old buildings in Oregon and Washington, which they've renovated into cool hotel/movie theatre/restaurants. The Grand Lodge is an old Masonic lodge, in a great location for wine tasting. You'd think I would have taken a picture to show the grandness of the building, but, um, no.

Anyway, we had a great time over three days in Oregon, and loaded up on some wine for our "cellar". Plenty of pinot noir's and a few other varietals as well. We even stopped at the only American owned sakery to sample and buy some sake!

Here I am outside of the Elk Cove Winery, our second stop of the day.



Going in the winter, the vines are a bit bare. But we had a nice sunny day and it's relaxing to be out in the country with these kinds of scenes.






Here's our final haul, after we got back home. It was a blast to taste some fantastic wines, enjoy the outdoor hot tub at the Grand Lodge, and relentlessly destroy Jamie at backgammon (her opinion may differ on that one).



Baby, we were born to run

Shortly into the new year, I was reminded that I had promised to do something crazy. Run a mile. Yes, this doesn't sound like an arduous task, and I didn't think so either, until I almost died on the Mountlake Terrace High School track.

OK, it wasn't that bad, but I'm out of shape! I wouldn't have missed this mile for the world though, as I ran a crucial leg of the 2006 Alympics! This of course would be the decade-annual event for my godfather Al Bonney's birthday - number 60 this year. I ran mile 53 of the relay.

This was going to be an interesting experiment given the fact that I completely forgot about doing any training whatsoever. I didn't want to completely embarrass myself, given that I used to bang out a pretty easy 5:45 first mile in cross-country in high school (we won't discuss my speed after that first mile).

Well, I found out just how fast I am these days, as I felt like I was going to pass out on the 3rd lap, and staggered across the finish line. I actually thought I had run pretty fast. 6:45? Maybe 7:00 or 7:15? Try 7:48. Ye gods. You know, it WAS about 40 degrees out, and I think I warmed up too long, and...ah hell, I'm old and slow. Al ran multiple miles during the relay, all around 7:15 or so, and he's 60! Al's wife Regina can still crank it out as well - 5:45 I believe - but that's a former Olympian for you.

All in all it was a great event, and we celebrated with a nice party back at the Bonney's after the run.

Here's the old man in action, running his final mile of the relay, with Gail Hall. Note the signature rubber chicken baton! Tom's sign he's holding says "run you old bastard, run". And he did.



So, that run did motivate me to start hitting the pavement again. I've gone through this renewal of enthusiasm every year - usually right after I announce the St. Patrick's Day Dash - and it usually peters out. Not this year. This time I have some motivational help.

I picked up the Nike Plus+ running system, along with an iPod. The Nike Plus is a sensor you place on your shoe, that communicates with the iPod to track your runs, mileage, distance, etc. After the run you come back and upload your data to a Nike web site, where you can see your total distance, speed during the run, and other data. Very slick.

More importantly you can enter into different challenges. I've hooked up with some of the guys from the 2+2 forum (the poker discussion forum I read and post at) to enter into a 6-month running challenge. It's pretty simple - total miles - and nothing is on the line besides personal pride. But it's already a great motivating factor - you don't want to be the one on the bottom of the list!

For further motivation, and to celebrate my entrance into my 30's, I've decided something else as well. I'm going to run a marathon. Yeah, seems ambitious for a guy who struggled through a mile run, but I've picked up a great book with a training plan for "non-runners". It's called The Non Runner's Marathon Trainer. It was written by a couple of guys who have taught a marathon class at Northern Iowa University. Most people in the class historically have never run farther than a couple of miles. But out of the hundreds of runners they've had in the class, they've only had one runner not finish the marathon! The reviews on Amazon seem to back that up as well.

The book includes a 4 month training program, and concentrates on the mental aspects of running as much as the physical ones. The approach makes sense from what I've read, and the goal is really simple - finish. So that's my goal too. No time goals, or anything like that, just to run and finish. I'm planning on finding one to run in the early fall/late summer most likely, which gives me a couple of months still to build up a small base before beginning the program.

My motivation for this is pretty simple. My grandfather, mom and dad both ran marathons, and I've always wanted to do it, so why not now? Gotta keep up the family tradition!

So look for more updates on this in the future.

Hmm, running and getting in shape, trying to be more organized, that sounds like a couple of resolutions after all. Maybe I'm not perfect after all (but it's close).

:-)