Feelin' Groovy!

After my mid-week declaration last week to s*it or get off the pot, I closed out the week with:

Thursday - 4 miles, 36:45
Sunday - 6 miles, 55:40

OK, so no medals but these are my "normal" times for running around the neighborhood. After all my false starts this month, at least I'm back running and in the groove again! More importantly, you must agree my ride's looking better than when I started ... no need to pimp this baby!

No More One-N-Done

January has been spectacularly unspectacular so far as far as running goes (how's that for sentence construction!). I've been trying to get the running off the ground, but it's been one-run-a-week for the first three weeks and I feel like I'm starting over each time.

This week I finally said enough. I ran yesterday, and also today. Not great runs, only 4 and 3 miles, but I want to get this old rust bucket going again. I'm shooting for another run tomorrow, then one this weekend. I'm starting to salivate over the marathon calendar for this year, but I'm so far removed from marathon form that I can't see myself signing up for anything yet. Soon, soon, patience ....

The Cycle of Life

I'm sitting at Teo's in Austin having a cafe au lait and catching up on a little bit of work leftover from last week. It's perfect in Austin - cool nights in the 40's, sunny days in the 60's. I came down yesterday to pick up some shirts I had printed up. It's a little side business / experiment of mine - check it out at www.uttees.com! Thanks Wil for the inspiration you probably didn't even know you gave me!

It's a small start, but I hope grow it into a more creative and edgy alternative to the mainstream (bor-ing) stuff put out by the campus bookstores and big-box sports retailers. Their stuff all seems to come from the same guy who invented "Property of Ho-Hum University Athletic Department XXL" shirts 50 years ago. Eventually I want to get the students themselves to design these shirts, and I'll give them a sales outlet and pay them a royalty. BTW - if anyone cares to learn about the significance of Bevo (the Texas mascot) and 13-0, read this (page down to #11).

So while I'm here, I caught a basketball game in town. Our baseball team won the CWS last year, and our football team won the BCS. Can you imagine the expectations from the alumni and boosters for our basketball team and a run to the Final Four? Luckily, we took a step in the right direction as #9 Texas beat #3 Villanova 58-55.

After the game, I finally got around to running. I'm still not back in shape for the new year, but I'm trying. I ran to and around campus, across all the same paths I fuzzily remember from almost 20 years ago. School starts on Tue, and there were quite a few parents rolling around helping their kids move in. It's the cycle of life and it never stops. It's actually scary. No one will mistake me for a returning undergrad, but I sure hope I don't look old enough to be their old man - my fear is that when my turn comes, I will! I don't want my kids to grow up any faster, but I also don't want them to wait till I'm old and gray. Time and tide waits for no man - I'm screwed!

A Run Into The History Books

My boys came through! Vince Young, Heisman runner-up, but MVP of the 2006 National Champions, ran for 200 to go along with his 267 passing. When I grow up, I wanna run like Vince!

Just12Start

I was getting ready for my first run of the year this morning when I caught a glimpse of this view outside our bedroom window. It delayed the start of my run by a few minutes while I hunted down my camera for this shot. After a month off from running, and during which I thoroughly enjoyed my never-met-a-dessert-I-didn't-like diet (including tiramisu and chocolate cake just hours before the new year deadline!), I've been looking forward to getting started again.

This picture was taken at about 7:30 am. A few minutes later, I was running through my neighborhood, down the familiar sidewalks and streets that I hadn't seen up close in a while. It was quiet outside, a very comfortable 60-ish F, with a gentle cool breeze. I was out for about an hour, but stopped a couple of times to enjoy the freshness of the morning air, and the unusual sight of completely empty streets well past 8 o'clock in the morning. I saw only two other people walking, and no one running.

It was a great dust-off-the-cobwebs run. Well, some cobwebs fell off last week as I took my 4th grader for daily runs for her upcoming science fair project. Does 6 days x 0.5 miles count as running? We have one more half-miler to do today to complete 7 days of test data collection. I'll post the hypothesis and results later.

Happy New Year to all!