Zeb and Rocky’s Big Adventure – Part #4

Jan 282011
 

The bike was fixed and we continued on our bikes toward the beach.  The Santa Ana River Trail is a perfect place to go for a bike ride.  The trail goes through Anaheim and down to Newport Beach.  You rarely have to cross any streets as you make it through the trail and for the most part the trail is flat.

Throughout the trail, there are people with all sorts of bicycling contraptions.  We saw an elliptical machine that actually was able to travel along the bike path, something that I had not seen before.  There were those bikes that have people sitting down with the pedals in front of them and your typical bicycles.  Although, I think throughout the journey, mine took the cake for being the oldest.  We even saw one guy on a motorized scooter type thing, after we passed my brother turned to me and said, “Cheater.”

The trail took us right past the Honda Center and Angel Stadium.  My brother just purchased season tickets to the Angels so, we anticipate making quite a few bike rides to Angel Stadium by way of the Santa Ana River Trail in the near future.

Along the trail they have mile markers until you reach the beach and although we were tired, the time seemed to fly by.  Slowly, little signs appeared that let us knew we were close to the Pacific Ocean.  First, the smell, the beach has a unique smell and you can sense it’s nearness because of that smell, so we knew we were close.  Then in the “river” basin you could see beach sand that had traveled up the river somehow.  And, lastly, you could see it.  The sight of the beach and the sense of accomplishment that accompanied it was great.  We actually rode a bike, from where we lived to the beach.  Not many people can say that.

We decided to celebrate by stopping inside Newport Burgers to have a hearty lunch.  When we got off of our bicycles, one thing was apparent.  Our asses were sore!  Newport Burgers was a good place to eat, you could tell it was a family owned place decorated with a lot of photo’s from around the 1950’s.  After our meal, we needed to ride back to Anaheim to be picked up by another one of our heroes . . . our father. 

With a sore rear-end and after having rode on a bicycle for 26 miles, and running for another 4 miles, was it possible that we could make it back to Anaheim?  Only our butts would have that answer . . .

Stay Tuned for Part #5 of Zeb and Rocky’s Big Adventure

Ironman Training Week #4 – Master Procrastinator

Jan 272011
 

ZebI am a Master Procrastinator.  This week, I did not do much in the way of exercise, but I did want to stay true to my New Year’s resolution where I would increase my distance in running, biking and swimming each week, until I was able to do the full Ironman distance for each event.  On Wednesday night, the last day of the week for my training, I was 6 miles short on my running, 14 miles short on my biking and 2.3 miles short on my swimming.

At 11:30 PM, I left for the gym and 4 hours later I was back in bed, having kept my New Years Resolution alive and well.  And, on top of that, I completed the full Ironman distance in the swimming pool.  Actually, a little bit over that, almost 2.5 miles.  It took me one hour to run 6 miles, one hour to bike 14 miles and 1 hour and 53 minutes to complete the 2.5 mile swim, 27 minutes faster then the cut-off time for the Ironman race.

Six miles is the longest I have ran in one attempt, 14 miles is the third longest I have ever biked, and 2.5 miles is the longest I have ever swam in a pool.  I am extremely proud that I stuck to my New Year’s Resolution, but also really impressed about how long I was able to last.  This whole Ironman thing is going to be easier than I thought.

Weekly Amount:

Running = 10.4 miles
Biking = 44 miles
Swimming = 4600 M or 2.9 miles
Total Amount: 57 miles

Overall Amount:

Running = 40 miles (71 miles to San Diego)
Biking = 87 miles (24 miles to San Diego)
Swimming = 17,200 meters or 10.7 miles (26.6 miles to Los Angeles)
Total = 136 miles (106 miles to Las Vegas)

Accomplishment:

Zeb Runs to L.A.

Deleting Spammers

Jan 262011
 

Since we are new to this whole blogging thing, I did not want to offend anyone by deleting comments.  But, as stated in a previous post, we were being innundated with massive amounts of spam comments about our blog.  Some genuine and others not so much.  Something had to be done.

It was really tough not to want to add the ones that said nice things about us, but like the saying goes, flattery will get you no where. 

Today, we are making the decision to delete all spam posts, because we want to generate genuine discussion on our website, so to our commenters, be genuine . . . like the heroes you are.

Our Second Hero – Steve Ference from Viva Movement

Jan 262011
 

Steve Ference, you posted two comments, one about swimming during lunch so that we can eat whatever we want and how quitting the drinking of alcohol was a good thing.  In order to return the favor, we have made the decision to make you one of our heroes.  The honor is immense, but you are worthy.

 

Viva Movement began as a blog about Steve wanting to become more adventurous.  One new such adventure was a sprint triathalon.  As Steve puts it, “It was one of the most rewarding things I’ve done.”  After that, he was hooked and now VivaMovement has transformed into the chronicling of his journey to become an Ironman.

Steve has a very practical approach to attaining this goal.  He is trying to accomplish little steps along the way to reach his ultimate goal.  His next step is to run a marathon.

When I emailed Steve, asking him for an interview, he indicated to me that he was moving to South Korea.  Originally from Indiana, PA, he and his wife, decided to up and move to the other side of the planet, to teach English to South Koreans.  They figured that with no children and no commitments, that this would be there only time to do something like this and is now finding himself getting situated in an entirely new country.

 
The most rewarding things that Steve has accomplished so far is swimming a mile in a pool.  Which, also happens to be my favorite article that he has written, http://vivamovement.blogspot.com/2010/12/one-mile-swim.html, very inspiring.   It really gave him some perspective on how much more training that he was going to have to do to prepare.  He likes the solitude of running by himself, but also enjoys the company of others on a run. 
 
Steve recommends setting small, attainable goals.  Having a huge goal is great, but you need to feel some sense of accomplishment along the way.  He also suggests telling as many people as you can about your goals, so that they, and yourself will hold you more accountable.
 
One thing Steve recommends that everyone should do at least once in their lifetime is travel to a different country.  He has been in South Korea for just a short period of time and already has called it one of the most life-changing experiences he has ever had as it has changed his worldview and personal views.
 
Writing is Steve’s passion and if you are interested in learning more about Steve, Viva Movement, or his Ironman training, visit his website, http://www.vivamovement.blogspot.com/. 

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:

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

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

  1. Male Enhancement for talking about male enhancement spammers
  2. Making Money
  3. Perscription drugs

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

Zeb and Rocky’s Big Adventure – Part #3

Jan 242011
 

After my bike chain broke, I was ready to call it a day.  We had traveled six miles and I figured that the bike chain breaking would be a good story, but my brother had other ideas.  He pulled out his new Android cell phone, hit a button and spoke . . . “Bike Shop.”  He pushed a couple more times on his phone and he then showed me our new destination, a bike shop . . . alledgedly one mile away on the same road that we were on.

So, I figured, “What the heck?”  My brother decided to pedal onwards to the bike shop and I told him that I would run the best I could behind him so that we could make it to the bike shop quickly.  The shop was located on Imperial Street, which, like I said was allegedly a mile away. “Not to bad,” I thought to myself, I can run that no problem . . .

When I arrived at the bike shop . . . 4 MILES later, I was exhausted, not only did I run four miles, but I did it having to run alongside a bicycle.  I had assumed that since it was a mile that I could make it quickly, so I ran at a pretty good pace.  Each stop light that I came across was not the correct one, so I kept thinking that surely it would be the next one, so I ran even faster only to be let down time after time until, eventually, I made it to Imperial Highway. 

The bike shop was located in Anaheim Hills, right next to the Fox Fire, which by the way, if you have never been on a Friday or Saturday night, I highly recommend.  Especially if you are a people watcher like myself.  I went there one time and never had so much fun just watching other people’s behaviors.

By the time I got to the shop my brother had just finished purchasing the proper bike chain for twenty bucks.  They also were going to charge us ten dollars to install it, we decided to give it a try ourselves.  It took us thirty seconds to put the bike chain on.   

Twenty dollars later and thirty seconds worth of work, I had myself a new bike chain and was ready to get back on the bicycle.  We needed twenty-one more miles to make it to the beach.  Do you think we made it? 

Stay Tuned for Part #4 of Zeb and Rocky’s Big Adventure . . .

Penis Enlargement, Get Taller, Male Enhancement and The Tourist Are Readers of The Running Brothers

Jan 232011
 

What do Penis Enlargment, Getting Taller, Male Enhancement and the movie, The Tourist have in common?

They have all commented on our blog.  We began our website a little over a month ago and already have over 100 comments.  Thank you to those of you who have posted constructive comments onto our website, we truly appreciate it.  You are our heroes.  But, there is a darker side to this whole blogging thing, the spammers.

I know that they are not real, but what if they were?  So, this post is dedicated to those commenters who may or may not be real people. 

“just notice! Increase link popularity to get ranked on google, please submit your blog or website to our directory.” — male enhancement

Ahhh, yes, sign me up!  I would love to help get ranked on google by someone named Male Enhancement.  Sounds legitimate, in fact I have heard that male enhancement does increase your popularity, but maybe not so much with Google.

“People who own blogs just like yours are making a full time income from blogging to the bank’s free money making blog. The highest earning blogger using our free blogs is making $456.98 per day, and you can too! Quit your day job using this.” — WordPress Cash

Great advice!  Quit your job and blog all day because the highest earning blogger makes $456.98 per day.  That’s like saying, “Hey, quit your day job and play baseball all day, the highest earning baseball player makes $68,493.15 per day.”  If the wealthiest guy is making $456.98 per day, that’s not much to brag about when you compare it to other professions.  So, yes, by all means encourage people to quit their day jobs so that they can give you money . . . nice.

“Hi,good article. Informations are very usefull and saved me many time which I spend on something else instead of searching posts like this Thanks and waiting for more posts like this one.” — Get Taller

This is my favorite post because I think we have gotten 20 of them so far which are all nearly identical.  The only thing is is that these posts go onto our pictures, or are in response to a story . . . absolutely nothing that would save anyone any time.  I mean at least pretend like you read it.

“Really Gr8 ! Thanks For sharing..” — The Tourist

My guess is that this guy tours websites, telling everyone how great their website is.  They have to get as much free advertising for the movie because it was so bad and they spent so much money trying to sell it as a great movie. 

“lol, nice article friend!. I was reminded of my friends about it, maybe I’ll tell her this blog, and some other friends.” — Penis Enlargement

I think that this would be the best name ever.  Although, I’m not sure that he would have many friends, as he says he does, if that were his real name . . . Although, he did say that his friend was a her.

Lastly, I want to close with this . . . most of these people are from penis enlargement or male enhancement services . . . do you think they are trying to tell us something?

Zeb and Rocky’s Big Adventure – Part #2

Jan 222011
 

My original plan was to see how far I could bike without stopping.  Ultimately, I need to be able to complete 112 miles on a bike in around 8 hours if I want to be able to complete the Ironman, so I wanted to establish how far I could last without having any training at all. 

My brother and I worked really hard on fixing up the bicycle as you can read in a previous post, http://runningbrothers.com/363/my-new-bicycle/, but the thing was old and covered in rust.  I was a little scared knowing that this bicycle was not in tip-top shape.  The gears didn’t work, so I told my brother to set it at the highest gear and I would just work from there. 

We were dropped off by one of our heroes, our Mom, at the entrance to the Santa Ana River Trail.  The ride began simply enough, my brother and I, side by side just like The Lone Ranger and Tonto, only we were riding bicycles (and don’t ask which one was Tonto). 

Six miles into our adventure, I faced a short uphill climb . . . so I powered my legs to build up some steam to make it to the top of the hill.  Just before the top, I heard a loud “SNAP,” the tension in the pedals gave way and my knee skyrocketed up into the handlebars bringing me to an instant stop.  I yelled at my brother to stop, but he pedaled on, not noticing my misfortune. 

Several bike riders behind me stopped to ask if I was ok, I’m assuming because serious injury can come from breaking a bike chain.  I retrieved the bike chain and eventually my brother returned to see if I was ok. 

At the beginning of the bike ride I planned on trying my best to complete 112 miles and just before we had traveled 6 miles, my rusted bike chain broke and our ride came to an end . . .

. . . or so I thought.

Stay Tuned for Part #3 of Zeb and Rocky’s Big Adventure!

Zeb and Rocky’s Big Adventure #1

Jan 212011
 

Our Big Adventure began at 9:15 in the morning at the beginning of the Santa Ana Bike Trail on January 16, 2011.  We knew that we would be in for a long day, but had no idea what the day had in store for us.  The trail is a 30-mile bike ride from Corona to Newport.  My previous long bike ride was just 12 miles.  And, not only that, but we would have to make a return trip to Anaheim, another 17 miles or so.

So, with my newly fixed up bicycle, my brother and I headed to the Pacific Ocean.  Stay tuned for the rest of our 5-part series:  Zeb and Rocky’s Big Adventure.

Here is a website for information about the Santa Ana River Trail – http://www.trailsafetypatrol.com/

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