Tech-as in Texas

Texas. Big, roamy, cattle country Texas is actually home to great and innovative computer technology. Our chip timing program is born and raised there. We flew to Texas to learn Yoda style from the master mind that developed our chip timing program. Dealing with electronics outdoors, in the elements, on the spot, and live, with thousands of runner’s expectations for timely and accurate results, is specially intense requiring fast actions with instantaneous fixes. We actually play and rehearse potentials for data crash landings just to be prepared. This is making us good timing pilots and a solid timing company. That is why we went to Texas.
What strikes me different about Texan races? The food they serve at the finish line. No wimps here nibbling on dainty bagels and orange wedges! They had a team of grey haired ladies flipping huge sausages on a grill and dishing out beans, salsa, and rice TEX- MEX style. Yay-yeah. And a chunk of the crowd wore shirts that said TEXAS just to remind you that you were where you really were…in a big place, with big pride about that place. PS. Did I tell you this area of Texas was experiencing a record cold spell and the temperatures were far below that mark that freezes water? Burrr.

Have to say, I relished a few down days in San Antonio and pleasured in restuaranting and running that city’s unique draw, the Riverwalk. Smart planners back in the 1920’s reacted to a life taking flood by designing a channel for the San Antonio River to flow right through the heart of the town. They had the foresight that the banks would someday become restaurants, and lush walk ways, and hotels. It was one of the most refreshing places I have ever hung out at. After ditching a bad hotel experience, I found an even cheaper discount, but was treated to a 23 story restored bank building with a tiny pool and Jacuzzi nested on the roof. This bird’s perch gave me surround views of the Alamo and the adobe, brick, and limestone churches and buildings. The airy, edginess of being up so high and so close to complete drop offs made it feel like being on a thrill ride in a theme park . It was the perch beyond perches to witness the sun setting over the city. Oh, yeah, that sun that throws hues across the sky when it sets. I had almost forgotten about it.

My balcony overlooked a quaint town square with benches, fountains, and a very Texan looking adobe church. The church bells chimed you back almost two hundred years. I wanted to adorn a coon skin hat and fight to save the life of Davie Crocket. Seriously.
The porches and restored homes in the King Williams district let you know this town started out with prosperity. Huge, doughy pecan cinnamon rolls that even your grandma could not out make were served at the Gunther House. That is the dough I can afford! I ate not just one of the sticky buns, but two. Thought I could get away with it because I was using the stair well of my hotel as my track training ground. Sprinting 8 to 10 flights at a time feels very much like the last 40 yards of a 400m run.
I ventured out to a town called Kerrville. Here, snow birds are buying acres of land beyond the ranches and clearing roadways to level spots for homes that will overlook vastness I have only seen in the Blue Mountains of Australia or the Outback! I hung out with a couple from California that was delighting in the arduous work of clearing land for their retirement home. They were originally from Michigan and wanted to join their comrades who vowed to live beyond the reaches of snow. Funny thing. There was snow on the ground here. And a menacing wind was blowing cold right from that native land to the north they were laboring to leave. But the Texans reminded me this was unseasonably cold as compared to how toughening the hot of their summer can be. The hardened looking chaparral told me they weren’t exaggerating. Ouch. I just bumped into a cactus.

My mommy is…

As we rushed…I mean rushed to re-situate the mats for the finish line before the first runner came in, these young boys caught my eye. They were dutifully holding poster board signs in wait for their mom to finish her half marathon. They eye searched every approaching runner with the same seriousness the Secret Service does a crowd around the President. It can typically take up to two hours to complete a half marathon, but that did not derail these young men. They had a mission and that was to let their mom know her accomplishment of 13.1 miles meant something. They were not going to miss her, no sir, despite the crowd.
I had to snap a picture of the reunited lot when she finally was spotted and finished to their cheers. Hopefully, I captured their expressed joy over their “mom” taking up running and finishing her very first long distance race. I have no idea who this family was, but they made me smile to myself the rest of the morning as we packed up the over 4,000 person event. I only hope more and more people are cheered on to start up something new.
The cool thing about running? It can become a pursuit by anyone, at any time, at any age. It can be started up with a pair of shoes, the gumption to run some miles, and picking any event distance, size, place, or date . There is great reward in publically participating with hundreds of other bib bearing runners. You can find events in Southern California on http://www.raceplace.com or http://www.active.com.
Races guaranteed to have timely and accurate timing can be found on http://www.resultsbyprimetime.com in their calendar section! Course those are our PRIME TIMEd events. I am a little biased about our staff and ability to time.
Three easy steps to social running are: Pick a good fitting pair of shoes. Now run in them. ( Consistency helps.) Then pick events that sound fun, inviting, or challenging. Something different to do than the couch. Posted results divide you into a gender and age category so you can see how you rank and improve against those in your same bracket.
That is why road racing is so popular. Not only are you one in the pack, you are also scoring against only a small bracket in your similar age group. I hope to see lots of other sports do this so people at any age can continue to enjoy the hobby, health, and fulfillment of sport.
I have been campaigning, participating, training and racing in master’s (over 35 yr olds) track & field. Check out master’s national and world competitions at http://www.usatf.org. and my website http://www.carenware.com. I am hurdling, jumping, throwing, and sprinting my way around the world for much the same reason I am going to run a remote marathon on every continent. Just to do it.
As an update to those that have followed my blog from its inception in February 2010, an opportunity to potentially have the remote marathons culminate into a documentary has put my next remote marathons off until August of 2011. In the meantime, I am shocked by the melting away of muscle and core strength that came with shuffling at the same, slow grueling pace as I did the mileage for the Austrailian Outback Marathon this past August.. Endurance I built. Speed I speedily lost. Booty too. Opps.
I am going to use this window of wait as an opportunity to pour it back on the track. The World Championships are being held right here in Sacramento, California this upcoming July. Track with me as I train for the Heptathlon, the combination of seven track events: hurdles, 800m, 200m, long jump, high jump, shot put, and javelin. All the while, I will still be doing all the preparatory work to line up future travel treks to the Himalayas for a Tibetan supported marathon from the Base Camp of Mt. Everest, running the safari lands with Kenyans around the base of Kilimanjaro, and counting turtles in Spanish in the Galapagos Islands. I already have a reservation on a boat headed to Antarctica in February, 2012. Even have a parka.
Getting to all these places will not come without planning, funding, and continuing to work, live, and produce. I am going to blog all about it so you can adventure with me to see how this all happens or hap hazards: how it finds, discovers, twists, and turns. It will be a live journal. A live journey. My flimsy waved poster reads ”my mommy ventures more than your mommy!!”

Went for a long run.

I went for a long run. I appreciate that I have a girl friend that understands my business obligations and travel absenteeism. She patiently checks in on me until we finally connect a time that fits both our busy schedules. This may take months.
I look forward to time with her. She trains for ironmans. We catch up on chatter as we either bike or run. Neither of us are the mall shopping kind of girls. Our friendship talks about the mundane and the yahoos of life while huffing over terrain. That’s more thrilling to me than a sale at Macy’s!
We met on the mountain, ditched one vehicle, and drove out of the ice and snow of Lake Arrowhead to what we call the backside. Off of Hwy 138 , Silverwood Lake shimmers, unattended in the winter months. There are rolling hills dotted with desert chaparral, still scarred from the mass fire that swept the entire valley only hours after I ran in and retrieved our parked truck back in 2003. We dropped 2,000 feet down and parked at an empty Ranger station. We had to leap over riverettes that were the last trace of the flash flooding caused by the record breaking 23 inches of rain fall that had occurred over the past weeks. It finally got cold enough and the rain turned into inches of thick, tire skidding ice topped with a dusting of snow. We were taking advantage of this first day of no dismal weather.
We hadn’t expected snow to have fallen this low. The desert had only received a dusting, but the arctic air temperatures had kept this deceptively sunny looking vastness…frozen. There was snow on the trail. We didn’t complain because the sparkling landscape with its brush and crystal air was sterling and stunningly beautiful. We felt reverently respectful that we were healthy enough and adventurous enough to enjoy such an exercise expanse. And we respected the fact we were in a remote mountainous area. We had sited mountain lions in this area on our bikes a year earlier. We knew they were capable of roaming here.
We examined animal tracks in the snow. Coyote, rabbits, deer, and funky bird patterns, but no lions…and no humans. Our new crunches in the snow were the first to venture in this area in weeks. The awe of it all made the run even more rewarding. The trail was single wide and slick. I took a couple of tumbles in my saucony racing flats. My iron nimble friend got to stay on her feet. But each curve produced a great view as we jogged along the hills that housed the lake. And without even feeling the mileage, two hours went quickly by. The run felt like I had been beamed to a remote place, but was only hours from Los Angeles. I had to muse that I had spent a good portion of a month exploring remoteness in Australia and New Zealand and running the Outback Marathon and yet, the same awe-ness of remoteness was felt right here. Right in Southern California! Ahhh.
Days later my left hip tendon began to complain from the impact and twisting of the falls. Hope it doesn’t nag and linger too long. But I will put up with bruises any day to have a true friend like her. Conversation had been the best part of being out though we talked of nothing in particular. I enjoyed the surface talk that didn’t pry for the whirlpools in my life. She knew without asking how swift the current current was for me. I silently returned understanding that her calls to check on me was to make sure I hadn’t drown.
Thank you for demonstrating true, unconditional friendship. That alone gives me enough strength to keep swimming during rapids and tumultuous sections of the river of life. I think I went over the waterfall.
She gave to me what most of us need; non-judging acceptance that welcomes a person past their flaws, choices, or circumstances. There was so much I didn’t talk to her about. I can’t even talk to myself right now. So she didn’t pry and it was reparative just to be out enjoying a sparkly day outside.
By the way, tumultuous is defined as full or turmoil; marked by disturbance and uproar. Raising a great clatter and commotion. Highly agitated, as the mind or emotions; distraught, turbulent. All of the above pertain to a life going through divorce. All felt like they were describing my 2010. 2011 was the start of something quite different, and full of more hope and direction.

Sketchers are the draw!

We see a LOT of new product introduced at booths set up at the races. LOTS. What caught my eye long before the arrival of the Sketcher Resistance shoe with the kinetic energy sole ; was the sharply dressed, professionally postured young gal, Ashley that works for Sketchers marketing. Now, she has kinetic energy! I have known her when she helped manage running races. Beyond her natural beauty, she had a competitive, determined look in her eye; the kind of look that grabs corporate ladders by the rungs and catapults up. A capable look despite her young age.
I liked her candidness. She shared a younger perspective of life for me. Especially, about being the survivor of a divorced home. She made a strategic latch onto a business position in marketing. This marketing position had her reappear at vending booths at runs all over. She excitedly shared with me about this new, fully researched shoe that builds calf muscle and gluts while rolling the foot in its natural arc. Check them out on http://www.skechers.com/style/12381/shape-ups-s2-lite/bkhp
My staff got a chance to. Two shipped boxes arrived and my entire timing crew gets to test these puppies on their feet at the races. We wore them in styling force to the Southern California Half Marathon mid January and will do so throughout the winter and spring.
I have to admit my mix of guys voiced skepticism about the shoe. My mix includes inner city, college aged, runners, metro, body builders, lifters, Asian, afro-American, Hispanic, white; and even a prison warden who likes doing something away from the inmates. Stop to think about it, we do have a solid, politically correct mix at PRIME TIME. Well, this “mix” was poking fun of the ads that the shoes tighten asses and firm up butts. They humored the idea verbally as they snatched boxes until they found their correct size.
But, guess what? Affirmation of the product came. My guys wear these shoes….everywhere. My weight lifting son… to college! They are admitting that the shoe fits. They like the solid feel. The stability. The fact that they feel like wearing a boot type running shoe. A shoe that supports the arc.
The true test will be in time. To see if it does, in fact, shape up their booties. I will keep you posted on their progress! Now, that will be the picture!

A doughy New Year!

I was treated to the privilege of experiencing a Norwegian Christmas. Handed down over the generations and brought to California through Minnesota farmers of Norwegian descent…this family used that grand family arena called the kitchen to spend the holiday making memories around tradition. They made breads and put green and red cherries in it and called it something like Ulechacha. It was deliciously better than the sound of its name. While nibbling at the left overs of their pecan cinnamon buns, they brought out a heating skillet, fired it up to 500 degrees, and started rolling out potato rolls, making them into precise pancakes handled agilely with wooden paddles, whom the adult brothers playfully poked and orchestrated each other with. The potato tortilla didn’t have much flavor, but the atmosphere in the kitchen did and that cemented the already very good Christmas my kids had expressed. I was so very thankful and could only send true love and wishes for those that had to experience the holidays alone. The year prior was never so long ago that I would not feel that alone one the rest of my life. Hope and love to those of you on the rough road…alone. I know you don’t want to hear it, but there is grace and there is a God and there are massive amounts of potential for warm days found in simple moments, but maybe not just yet.

rolling

The paddles

Must be nice to be skilled in making DOUGH!

Rich Dough

AND just as YUM. Check out the DONUT MAN, a 24 hour donut shop in Glendora.
Meet the Man who knows how to make DOUGH! Don’t we all want to have this skill?!!!

Would be nice to make more than ends meet in 2011. But heck, if we can’t we can always eat simple and simply well! I like finding people that hone their skills…that are bordering on best in their field. I was introduced to THE DONUT MAN on 915 E Route 66, Glendora, Ca. 91741. Watch this mouth watering display of doughy skill .www.youtube.com/watch?v=158C5-u6dDA . This is your daily dose of vitamin ‘g’…grease that is. But no shortage of carbs here. They are open 24 hours a day. And the glass windows give you front row visuals of the doughy donut making process…start to finish. Now, I like that kind of a race.