Passing Dean The Invincible?

If you've been reading your Runner's World, you may have seen the ad for Dean Karnazes' upcoming 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days run. It starts 9/17/06 and ends 11/5/06 in NYC.

I thought this was a pretty creative, if gimmicky plan, for Dean to come up with. But hey, I'm still looking foward to seeing him at MCM, where he'll be running the actual race that Sunday.

So did anyone else hear about this other guy who seems to have quietly done the same thing? He's doing it for charity and he's almost done already, having finished 48 marathons in 47 days!

And how would you feel about this right now if you were Dean?

Property Irregularities May Affect Your Training Runs

At 7:07 am this morning, I left Dallas for Greensboro, North Carolina. My single checked-in bag did not.

Since TSA's new rules went into effect, I've flown twice, "won" one and lost one.

At 6:30 pm, my bag had not yet been delivered to my hotel. AA's baggage tracking system had no idea where the bag was, the local office was not answering calls, and the next and last flight in wouldn't arrive until 10:50 pm. It wasn't looking good for my training run tomorrow morning, unless I was going to run in rolled-up kakhis and dress shoes (+ black socks for that extra visual impact).

At 7:30 pm, on my way to the mall to buy a set of clothes for tomorrow, I decided to check in to the hotel first. Lo and behold, behind the registration desk was my bag. Incredible.

So, my training will continue uninterrupted for the moment. I'm beginning to really enjoy my Saturday pace runs, especially since I've started finishing them ahead of my target 9:09 pace. Nevertheless, while huffing and puffing through a 7 mile pace run, I keep wishing I was doing a slow relaxed LSD run instead. Then Sunday happens, and while plodding along in my 15 mile LSD run, I keep wishing I could just speed up and get this thing over with! Dream on.

200M in 27:15

No, that's not a PR. It's how long it took American Airlines to move my bag from the gate to baggage claim last night. It was literally only 3 gates away, or 200M long given the way DFW is configured, and it took them 27 minutes! That's why I usually never check any bags, but ... c'est la vie.

At least I got in my EZ runs this week. Plus, it was a surprising and welcome 57F (gasp!) on Tuesday morning when I stepped out in Grand Rapids, Michigan for my run. Ran 4, 7, and 4 EZ on Tue, Wed, and Thu.

This morning it was back in Dallas for a 7 mile pace run. I managed to finish it right on pace, but I have no idea how I'm supposed to keep this pace for the entire 26.2!? I guess I'll have to trust Hal's plan and see how it goes.

Back In The Frying Pan

Texas that is. We're back from Singapore. Holy smokes, I read that there was a heat wave here, but this is unbelievable! There's no end to 100+F days in sight. We're pretty much camping indoors all day to escape the heat, which is fine since we're asleep most of the day with our jet lag anyway.

In the end, I was able to do most of my training runs up until we left last Thursday. My Sunday long run was pushed to Monday, which got rained out, so I did it on Tuesday. I ran 6+ miles to my sister's "flat", and surprised them with an early morning doorbell ring. After taking a GU, getting a bottle of water, and receiving no less than 3 pronouncements from sis that I was "bloody mad", I was off for the second half of the run. 12+ miles, 2:04:58.

I was off on Wed, we left on Thu, arrived on Thu also after 19 hours in flight and 3 hours in transit, and I was asleep all morning on Fri. Today, Sat, I was up since 2:30 am, so by 6:00 am I was ready for my run! I wasn't altogether as with it as I thought, and it was ugly but I finished my 6 mile pace run. Tomorrow is a 9 mile "short" long run.

We had a great vacation. I'll leave with a few favorite pics ...

We took a short road trip up to Malaysia. Outside of the cities, much of the country is still a trip back in time. Here's a makeshift roadside fruit-stand. Amazing that stuff like this still exists, but don't tell the Health Department.

Cappuccino? Oh yeah. Should've bought more. I passed on the limited edition Lemon Cheesecake flavor. I'm not kidding.

Some pics from our trip to the Singapore Zoo. I'm not a zoo person, but this is the best zoo I've ever been to by a long shot.

OK, one last food item. After countless samplings of local fare, this is what I eventually settled on as my default meal. In the first pic, the bowl in front is mine, a dish called "laksa" which is a noodle dish in a fiery hot coconut based curry broth. Just smelling it will start you sweating! After I survive that, for dessert I'll have what's in the second pic, which is called "ice kachang". It's shaved ice dripped in syrup and sweet milk with red beans, sweet corn, and jelly inside. Sounds bad, I know, but it tastes good! Fire and ice, both for about US$3.