Rocky » The Running Brothers

The First Half- Rose Bowl Half Marathon

Feb 102011

The gun just sounded and the crowd of over 600 runners bunched up. In my prerace preparation I looked at the course map and elevation chart and I knew the first half of the race would be the easier part of the race. The first three miles were a slow gradual downhill, what I did not know what that a lot of race was a trail run and trails creates a whole other set of issues.

Less than one mile into the race the entire field is funneled to a small almost unnoticable trail. The single wide trail resulted in a lot of bunching up and walking, which was fine by me because I knew there was a lot running left. As the trail opened up we were running 3 or 4 wide on a rocky dirt trail in the Arroyo Seco River Bed.

Wec continued under a few bridges, one of the other runners said one bridge was haunted. At first, the Suicide Bridge is very pretty and architecturally very impressive. But as the name sounds there is more of a story. Starting in 1919 people starting comitting sucide by jumping from it. In the four year span of the Great Depression nearly 50 people lost there lives right there. It is kinda creepy knowing we ran right through there. Local Legend is that several ghost spirits haunt the bridge. I didn’t have a close encounter but maybe Zeb noticed some unusally activities.

Unknowingly, Zeb and I escaped the ghosts and hauntings to start the return back toward the Rose Bowl. The next 6 miles were gonna be uphill, according to the elevation chart.

Zeb decided to start running at his own pace and started to pull away. Before the race we decided that we would run at our own paces. I knew Zeb would be faster and I just hoped to stay close. Eventually our friend from the start line with the fancy GPS watch came up and I asked how are we doing on our pace, she replied 8:43. I know I start faster and slow down toward the end so 8:43 sounds about right.

By mile 5 we emerged from the trail and were back on streets. My feet, knees and ankles appreciated it. Our support crew was cheering for us as we passed by the Rose Bowl. I don’t care who are, seeing familar faces cheering for you will always put a little pep in your step.

It turns out that at that point I was only 2 minutes behind Zeb . I was doing pretty good up .

Stay tuned to hear about the second half and the post race.

The Rose Bowl Pre Race

Feb 082011

I was looking forward to this past weekend for a long time. It was a three day weekend for me, it was Superbowl weekend, it was mystery challenge weekend for my brother, but I was most excited cause it was Rose Bowl Half Marathon for me.

With the Lacey Welborn designed shirts in hand I gave Zeb his shirt with bib number, 642, and revealed the mystery challenge. He was surprised and had a geniune look of excitement. I was releaved because he mentioned he wanted to skip the half and go straight to a full marathon but it worked with his planned training for the week.

We left the house arround 6 am to get to the Rose Bowl before 7:15, which apparently was a little early. They close the roads for the race at 7:30 and they told me 1200 people were going to be racing, so I thought it would be conjested… it wasn’t. We arrived at 7:00 and I told Zeb of my pre-race rituals, since I am a seasoned half marathoner with 1 under my belt aready. The pre-race rituals included people watching, using the restroom before a line formed and drinking a gatorade.

People watching at these events is a whole lot of fun espesially before the race. The serious runners are running/warming up, the not serious runners are yawning and the in-between people like the running brothers are giddy but a little ackward. But everyone is social, friendly and unusally excited for 7:00 AM on a Sunday.

We were surprised by our parents, who showed up arround 7:30 with big smiles and awesome running brothers shirts. We spent a few minutes searching for a place to get them coffee which apparently didn’t exist. I guess runners don’t like a quick shot of gut-busting coffee before 13.1 miles.

We headed to the start line at about 7:50 just in time to hear a less soulful but much more acurate version of the Star Spangled Banner than Christina Aguileria version later that day. After hearing whispers about how cool our shirts were we ran into another nervous runner who wanted to chat. She was a Mom from South Pasadena training for the LA marathon and the Half fit right in with her training schedule. She had a Garmin GPS watch which had some pretty cool functions but very little battery.

Zeb and Rocky on The Starting Line of the Rose Bowl Half Marathon

So we know we were only seconds from the gun going off. I strectched out my calf one more time and looked arround to see the 1200 anticpated racers seemed much smaller and then with little warning…BANG… the race was on.

Stay tuned to hear about my race: the first half, second half and post race. Zeb is also providing his step-by-step or if our knees could talk blow-by-blow account of day.

It’s Super Bowl Sunday and the Running Brothers are at the BOWL!!!

Feb 062011

Mystery Challenge =Rose Bowl Half Marathon

Zeb and Rocky at the Rose Bowl Half Marathon

Several weeks ago I saw the Rose Bowl was hosting a half marathon and I thought that would be a great stepping stone on my way to the marathon. Zeb has been left in the dark about this until I showed up at the house at 5:30 AM. I had to sneak arround to get Zeb registered but I got it all ready to go.

Stay tuned to see how we did? Are we gonna finish? Is Zeb gonna be pissed? Who is gonna win? Where are we gonna place in our divisions… in the whole race?

More to come……

A Beautiful Day!

Jan 292011

Today was a great day! My life has been very busy lately and I rarely have the time to get bored. So I was siting on the couch about 11:30 and thought what am I gonna do today. Well weather.com called for clear day and a high of 68, sounds like a great day, right? So I went to google maps and looked for something I have never been too, Lake Mathews is 16.2 miles from my house.

I figured I could check out something new and if it was a nice lake we could use it as an open water swimming lake to help Zeb practise for the Ironman. I started through the City and after stoping at, what felt like 100 signals I finally got out in to the “country.”

The thing about the “country” that I got to was that it was hilly country and hills are not made for me. But I was determined to get to my selected destination. So after several breaks and some tense moments with some trucks on the hills up to the hill I finally got to what I thought was the last hill. As I came over the hill there was nothing but more hills, but google maps on my phone said I was right next to it.

I was a little upset at first thinking that Lake Mathews was not really a lake. But I decide to go a little farther and cleared a small hill and there it was, and it was very nice. But I could only get as close a chain link fence which looked like it went arround the whole thing. So based on that I believe there is no recreastion or swimming at this lake, bummer.

Then it was time to come home and the relaxing ride was very nice. I really feel good that I turned a potential couch day in to a bike day.

Honeymoon period

Jan 252011

Zeb and I have been working very hard toward our goals. We have been running in a new City, resurected an old bike, biked to the beach, had a professional photoshot, and taken on several local runs. Our sister has also put in a lot of work with our website. We (mostly Zeb) has gotten a lot of followers to our web site. All of this has been great and has happened very fast. I am starting to feel that was the honeymoon period and now we are settling in to the day-to-day of rigerous training.

In response to my brothers post about spamers and auto-bot spamers who leave nonsense comments, I researched spam bots and I found that there is a lot of research and spam bots are actually very sophisicated. They use millions of different IP addresses, which could be hijacked or stolen so you can not block them. It really sounds like a war on spammers by people who are trying to provide information to the public.

Spam bots also automatically scan posts for key words and post to blogs they feel would have would have a more personal connection. So a blog about quilt making should not get spam about male enhancement pills. Likewise blogs about golfing (typically a male sport) will get more of those spam comments.

I am going to guess the type of spam bot comments this post will genererate:

Wedding planning for the subject line
Vacation oportunities for beach reference
Computer networking solutions for discussions about IP addresses

what list about internet spam would not be complete without the big three:

Male Enhancement for talking about male enhancement spammers
Making Money
Perscription drugs

I think by talking about it makes it more likely to happen but lets see which spam bots find this post.

BEAR ATTACK! ….. almost

Jan 182011

Stephen Colbert is right. Bears are a huge threat to America. If America is at war with Bears the front lines are in San Luis Obispo, and the running brothers experienced this first hand.

When my brother first brought up this project, my first thought was, “what about the bears?” But I eventually accepted that we may run into a bear or two throughout our entire training program. I told myself, that risk was acceptable in comparison to the enjoyment and fullfillment we would get from this project. On our very first run through San Luis we arrived at the Mission and encountered the first Bear of our training program, a gigantic Grizzly jabbing at the water. He wasn’t bothered by us but we kept our distance.

After surviving our first close encounter, on our very first run, we continued on our run. Fully satisified by the laws of statistics that we would not encounter another deadly creature we continued our run along the stream that runs by the San Luis Mission and through downtown.

I am leading the way, on this dark gloomy rainy night at about 11:00 pm we emerge from behind a building and….. BEAR!!!! It was croached in an attack position waiting for anyone to come out from behind the building only a few feet away. Startled I jump away from the bear, Zeb seeing me follows in my cat like evasion tactics but we quickly are frozen in our tracks.

After further investigation we confirm that this bear is as harmless as the bear at the Mission. An obviously hilarous jokster placed this bear in this particular location to startle people like us. IT WORKED.

So one day into our training and we have already encountered my full anticpation of bears for our entire training program. Unbelievable. We will keep you abreast of any future close calls with bears.

Reviving a Classic

Jan 122011

This past weekend my brother said he wanted to start the middle leg of his IronMan training, the Bike. When I think about the IronMan the swim scares me cause I swim like an anchor but the bike is what I would fear the most, for no reason than my rear can not handle 112 miles. But none the less we need to get Zeb turning those pedals as part of his training.

A few years ago, when I was a struggling college student I really wanted to start cycling but couldn’t afford a decent bike and on my way to work I saw a garage sale which had a road bike siting out. I immediatly pulled over and asked about it. It had flat tires, no seat, no brakes, a rusty chain, rusty sprokets, rusty handle bars, rusty….. rusty…… you get the picture. AND SHE ONLY WANTED $2. SCORE!!!

Back then I started my project to restore the bike to brand new condition. $80 later and several hours of taking it appart and scrubbing away rust I had a very nice bike. It was a little small for 6 foot guy but it did the job.

Now, several years later the bike has been sitting for a long time and bike has regrown its rust and lost all the air in its tires but its time to get it back. It’s behind a none working lawn mower and covered in spider webs but my brother and I can still see its speed. We wheel it out, clean it up and start checking how it works. We try to turn the pedals and it doesn’t turn but that won’t detour us. So we align up the chain and lube everything up. EUREKA!!! its turning. we put air in the tires and Zeb gives it a ride

It still needs some work but it gets my brother started on the middle leg of his Ironman. Good Luck Bro.

First Setback :(

Jan 082011

So far, this weekend isn’t quite what I had hoped. I had a lot of plans, which included golfing, a Laker game, Anahiem Ducks skills competition, a soccer game, and birthday gathering. In all of that I still wanted to get my second 4 minute mile attempt in. Unfortunently, my fist trip to Staples center left some of my weekend plans up in the air. The Lakers did win though.

So like my brother, I too, have been making an effort to limit my alcohol consumption. My reasons are slightly different than my brother. I need to get in shape and according to my doctor my liver would like me to get in shape as well. Since July I have limited myself to maybe a dozen beers and at the Laker game I did a few more (not too much) and got home really late (2 pm). Waking up this morning I felt like crap, not a hangover just a generally crappy feeling.

So I did my scheduled activities but I just didn’t feel up to the four minute challenge. I remember when I was younger I used to be able to bounce back from those sorts of things, but I guess my body won’t let me do that any more.

I guess this next week I will have to kick my butt a little harder on these workouts to make up for it.

Mystery Challenge

Jan 062011

To put it simply running is just putting one foot in front of the other, over and over and over again. I know people get more out of it and that is what helps to push them to keep working out and maintain their fitness but everyone needs to change it up every once in a while. You can change it up by running with new people or in new places and I need that. So I think I have found an exciting oportunity to change it up and to keep the suspense for my brother I am telling him it is a mystery challenge for him.

So here is the deal for him. Be ready at 5:30AM (I think that is the time he goes to bed) on Febuary 6th, 2011. Here is a short list of things he will need: 1) Running Shoes & 2) Shorts. So be ready for a good work out in a new city, some soreness and hopefully a good steping stone in our journey.

In the past I think my brother may have made fun of me if I told him what I have planned. I like that my brother is onboard for this fitness stuff, it really helps me in my goals.

One month to get ready!!! We will see if Zeb and I can do it.

Pandora Shame

Jan 042011

I have always felt like a natrualist runner and by naturaliest I like to see and hear nature as it was created. So I haven’t liked to wear sunglasses or have headphones on when I run. When I am running with a partner I don’t need music cause usually I can talk with the other person. But now that I try to fit workouts in with all the other demands on my time I find myself running alone and yesterday I tried the internet radio to keep me going, AND I LIKED IT.

I recently discovered Pandora, which is an internet radio application available on the internet and most smart phones and it will pick songs that it thinks you will like based on your feedback. Based on your thumbs up and thumbs down for each song Pandora will select your next song. It is a fun game to see what Pandora thinks you will like and it also may provide some insite to your personality.

As shamefully as it may be, I am going to list the songs that Pandora thinks I like based on my inputs :

I am calling this my Pandora Shame Story. So now I realize my music likes makes me appear to be a 12 year old girl. I have a new goal, to Man up my Pandora recommendations. Metallica here I come.

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