Archive for May, 2006

Cocky for a reason

Thursday, May 25th, 2006

Nobody seems to be running any slower yet, especially not me. Again this morning I ran my fastest run to date, seven miles averaging 9:31 per mile. This weekend I am going to run around Lake Jenkinson, 9 miles at 4000′ elevation, then I am going into forced slow-down for the next two weeks until the Tahoe Relay.

The media picked up on the fact that the officer involved in the shooting worked for me and they have been hammering me with interviews and interviews about him.

In one interview, they asked me if I could generally describe him. The only thing that came to mind was that he is like all my friends, “cocky, but really good”. I didn’t say it… I simply said that I couldn’t think of anything right then!

It has always confounded me how society seems to hate cops because they feel we are cocky. Same thing with Marines, people disliked us because they felt we were cocky. But I wonder, exactly who would they want protecting them? Someone with low self esteem?! When I was at a Marine Corps school in the summer of 1989, I noticed something within the platoon of about 60 guys. The ones who I regarded as being pretty much the strongest, best members of the platoon were the ones who would most likely be labeled as “cocky”. The ones who you would not want to share a fighting hole with seemed to have the lowest level of self confidence. 

I decided to test my theory. I started with a guy named Muskopf. He was built like a howitzer and we all called him Musk-Ox. I asked him who he thought was the “baddest” guy in the whole platoon. Without taking so much as a breath he raised a fist with a thumb pointed at his chest and said, “I am.” I found another guy named Thomas who I thought was a very strong member of the platoon and asked him the same question. Same answer. Then I found this skinny little guy who I did not regard as being quite as good of a Marine as Thomas or Muskopf, and I asked him the same thing. He looked around quizzically, shrugged, and said, “I dunno?” So this proved my theory:

If you ain’t cocky, you ain’t shit. And if you ain’t shit, you ain’t cocky.

Ask any Marine. Or even any cop.

Chris

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Running Hard

Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006

It was a great day for a morning run. It was wet out, slightly drizzling, but not too hot and not too cool. It was “just right”. Consequently, I jammed. Six miles at 9:40 pace. That’s jamming for me right now!

I was having flashbacks to Marine Corps days in Virginia, where everything was wet, and I was running so hard I could hardly see through all the sweat in my eyes. Just as if it were twenty years ago, I held nothing back. Why should I? I work in an air conditioned office, right? I had the new MP3 player on and Genesis Home By The Sea came on in the last two miles. I never realized what a great song that is for running.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to work in the air conditioned office as I had planned, and I spent way more time standing up than I ever expected I would today. About noon we had an officer involved in a shooting and I had to go out and help “manage” the media. It ended up being too much time standing on asphalt with nothing too eat and very little to drink. Hopefully, it won’t negatively impact my training progress.

The shooting happened in the parking lot of a crowded Wal Mart/Starbucks mall right at lunch time. A robbery suspect decided to try to run over an officer who was trying to arrest him. The officer ended up on the hood of the bad guy’s car. And subsequent to that, the officer fired effectively through the windshield; The driver of the car ended up with a 9mm bullet right between his eyes.

The best we could come up with for a name on the dead guy was an alias of “Chito”. I dont know what “Chito” means but I bet it would tell us something if we spent some time analyzing it. As the day wore on, we were told that the dead guy may be related to one or more recent homicides, that he had just robbed someone at gunpoint, and that he was likely choosing another victim to rob in the Wal MArt parking lot when the officer happened upon him. I guess the dead guy was running hard too.

I know the officer who was involved really well. He worked for me for several years before I came back to the Chief’s office. This event does not surpirse me. We haven’t released the officer’s name to the media yet, so I’m not listing here yet either.. just in case anybody really reads this. He is intelligent and passionate about his job. He has a habit of capturing really bad criminals. And with really bad criminals, they have no problem doing more really bad stuff to avoid capture.

Interestingly, I got an email from the involved officer just two hours before the shooting occurred, telling me how frustrated he was about the District Attorney dropping charges on a guy named Ivory Garner. He fought with Garner two years ago during an arrest. Garner tried to get his gun in the fight. I was there. Over this past weekend, Ivory Garner got a different gun and killed a guy. The officer was pissed off about it. Garner should have been in jail, not free to kill anyone. From the passion in his email, I could tell the officer was doing what he always does: running hard.

When I left the scene at 6pm, the officer was in the hospital with a messed up leg, the dead suspect was still laying half in/half out of his car in the Wal Mart parking lot, and I was exhausted. Hopefully everyone will run a little slower for the next few days.

Chris

 

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Getting Down The Road

Sunday, May 21st, 2006

So much for the idea of doing 2.5 mile repeats up and down the steep section I described in my last post! It seemed the legs just weren’t up for that today. It was probably a combination of factors:

1) I’m still tired from last week. I didn’t run all that many miles in the last week (21 miles) but it was definitely the most intense 21 miles I have ever run.

2) It was unusually humid here this morning! It rained last night and I could see my breath when I took off this morning. It felt like Hawaii! I was completely sweaty in the first 2/10ths of a mile. Usually, I am barely getting sweaty at the end of the first mile.

3) I carried a 50-ounce Camelbak in addition to my Fuel Belt. I have never run with a Camelbak before. I think they restrict a lot of the cooling area on the back. However, I want to try to run with this a few times and see if I can get used to it because I need to build up to the point where I can carry Curtis on my back while running. I am sure I will have to carry him if he ever comes running with me in the hills! Hahaha…

Anyway, enough excuses.

I carried the Camelbak and my Fuel Belt this week because I want to try to find a set up that will allow me to run at least three hours without needing any re-supply. Accordingly, I have been using Hammer Nutrition’s Perpetuem drink mix in the Fuel Belt bottles and carrying regular water in the Camelbak. I mix 1 level scoop of Perpetuem to one seven ounce bottle on my Fuel Belt. Then I drink two bottles from the Fuel Belt per hour. I believe this equals almost 260 calories per hour, and the Perpetuem includes a very nice complement of minerals as well. However, I also take one Endurolyte mineral capsule every 30 minutes.

Hourly, this amounts to 260 calories with 20-25 ounces of water (14 ounces in the mix, 10 more from the Camelbak) and 2 Endurolyte capsules. This mix gives me a wonderfully smooth trickle of everything my body needs to keep going down the road, hour after hour. The difference between doing it this way and doing it the old-fashioned way of just drinking water is huge

Since I am on the subject of things that help keep me going down the road, I better mention Body Glide. It helps prevent chaffing really well. I always use it on my long runs.

My legs were just dying today going up the steep hill, called Marbro Road. (You might be able to find it on Google Earth. It’s a dirt fire road, but it has been there for a long time.) The last 1/3 mile is more than 20% grade. My only trip up it was slower than my second trip up it last week. After I realized that, I adapted my run and accepted that I needed to run slower this week. So I took a jaunt out Hallelujah Trail, which rolls gently between 1100’ and 1200’ elevation, and has a spectacular view toward the central valley. It was an excellent idea that probably resulted in nearly as much climbing without quite as much physical stress. Doing it this way, I managed to eek out 10.5 miles, which is more distance than I ran last week.

Chris

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Slow Progress

Saturday, May 20th, 2006

Progress with the weblog: There is definitely a learning curve for figuring out how to manage this thing. So for now, sweet and simple. I tried, unsuccessfully, to add a fancy deal on the sidebar that would allow us to post short snippets of info that would not move unless we moved them… for  example it might just have one sentence that says “Curtis is riding the Davis Double Century today.” Or something like that. But I couldn’t get it to work so I abandoned it for now.

Progress with fitness: Erin and I registered for the Marine Corps Marathon this past week. The Marathon is in Washington DC on October 29th. We registered as a five hour runners. That would be faster than I ran the CIM last year, and faster than Erin ran the Marine Corps Marathon three years ago, but I don’t really care about how fast we run it. I mostly care about having a good time while I am running it. Registering was the easy part! Now we have to do the training and then find the $$$ to get there and run it!

Fitness-wise , I am in a good position. I ran 10 miles last week in the hills around our house. I Actually did two one-mile repeats up a hill that climbs 400 feet in elevation in the one mile distance. Tomorrow, if I feel strong, I plan to do 2.5 repeats on that hill. I have only been running three times per week but my distance is not less than five miles each time, so it’s is solid training.

June 10th Erin and I will be running a relay race around Lake Tahoe. There will be seven people on the team, covering 72 miles total. None of the legs are easy. The shortest is 8 miles with 1000′ feet of elevation gain in the last three miles. The longest leg is 12.9 miles. This is why I am training so hard in the hills right now.

Chris

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Davis Double 2006

Friday, May 19th, 2006

On the eve of the Davis Double some hopes of posting a PR for little-bro are dashed by the prevailing wind patterns and route changes. This year, will see 15+ mph head winds for the final 60 miles and an extra bit of climbing before lunch. Along with with extra climbing comes a compression of the climb up to the “Top of the Davis Double” from about 9 miles into 6 miles. (i.e. It’s going to a bit more steep and 700 out of 800 participats aren’t going to like it one bit.) So, when my next post on this subject documents a faster completion than when I was 21 years old, Lance himself will be relieved I choose to work in the tech industry.

Curt

Posted in Fitness, Scheduled Events | 4 Comments »

Getting Started, by Chris

Friday, May 19th, 2006

Ok, I have been envisioning a website that would be a central place for stories and lies about family adventures and stuff for a long time, only I couldn’t figure out how to make it happen. My theory has been that we needed a place where everyone could read the story without having to email it around to everyone individually. I wanted something that would allow us to be like we always are, every just all talking at once!

So yesterday, I was summoned to the office of the Chief of Police. Although this has been happening more often lately, it still doesn’t happen very often, so I wondered what was up. When I got there, the Chief had assembled a small team of about six people and he had a big idea he wanted to announce: He wanted to start a “blog” that everyone in the community could read. (Since when does a 60+ year old man have the idea of a blog? He must have gotten the idea from his teenaged daughter.)

So I started researching what a blog is. Now that I think I have it roughly figured out, I think this might be the way to have the centralized discussion I envisioned.

I’m still figuring it out, but we may as well jump in and see how it goes. I chose the software that Yahoo listed as being for “intermediate” users, so that may create a learning curve for me. But if you have ideas for categories or whatever, let me know.

In order to respond, you have to be a registered with the site. In order to register with the site, I think you need to click on the “comments” link at the bottom of this post (or any post), and then select the “register” link when the new page pops up. The registration is case specific!  So make sure you pay attention to your registration name and password. I was unable to get in to the site for a while because I kept typing “chris” for my user name, when I had entered “Chris” at the original registration point.

After you register, you may be able to add coments at that time. If you are not immediately able to add comments, it is probably because I have to accept your registration. After I accept your registration, I believe you will be able to add new posts and add comments. I am unsure how to instruct you to post photos at this time, but we will figure that out too.

I believe I can put password protection on the whole thing so that you would have to enter a login just to view any part of the blog. This way we could keep our stuff completely private. But for now, lets just get it started and see if it is worth doing at all.

Chris

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