Funny World Championships Pic

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Top 10 Excuses Heard Before A Race

I was on http://www.letsrun.com/ and I found a pretty funny thread. I have heard many of these and have even given some of these myself. The funny thing is even after giving some of these LAME excuses the person will often times run GREAT! Here are some of the responses I've noticed

10) "This is only a training run" or "I'm going to tempo this race."

9) "I haven't done any speed work so I'm not expecting much."

8) "I just decided to run this race 11 o'clock last night."

7) "I may not finish the race as I'm having bad shin splints."

6) "I only got 2 hours sleep. I was out drinking last night."

5) "It's too hot/cold/windy/rainy/sunny to run today"

4) "I'm not sure how I'll do today. I'm too well rested."

3) It's an 8am race start and the person says "You don't have to worry about me, I already ran 16 miles this morning."

2) "I had 2 BM's this morning. I wish I had a 3rd one."

AND THE NUMBER ONE EXCUSE HEARD BEFORE A RACE, drum roll please...

1) "I just got out of jail 30 minutes ago, long night. I'm not expecting much."

The thread

Have You Seen My Keys?

Here is a quick summary of my treadmill training so far. I run on the treadmill. I watch a woman who searches for her keys for 20 minutes every day. She walks to each treadmill and asks each person have they seen any keys? She looks under each and every treadmill and cycle. She then leaves. Pretty amusing. It helps the time go by.

Gained a Few lbs...

Seriously, every serious runner should have a fat version of themselves. I like fat me. Alot.

How To Go From a 20 Minute 5k Guy to a 15:30 5k Guy

My wife told me I was an idiot for doing this. She said I should charge money for this kind of advice. But I will do it anyway. I will give away the secrets for a 20 minute guy to be a 15:30 guy. Some of you will hate me for giving away these secrets, but only know that I had nothing but good intentions. So you want a to be a 15:30 5k guy huh? Well first you're going to have to do a little bit of work.

But wait, you don't know much about running except running around as fast as you can for 30 minutes. So that is why you start off by getting a beginner guide to running such as the one provided by Hal Higdon. Pretty simple and cookie cutter and you can't go wrong with that. So you go to the site and notice marathon programs in the beginner, intermediate, and advanced modes. So you pick the beginner level. Marathon training can't be that hard, after all, your brother trained for only a week and finished one.

So you start your training. It's best to have a couple of running buddies in the beginning because a 10 mile run by yourself can get pretty darn boring. After about a month you get yourself down to 8:30 minute pace for 10 miles. You're on your way to being a stud baby! You run your first marathon and finish in less than 4:30 hours but you are cramped up and hurting afterward. Who knew a marathon could be so hard? It's ok because you have got by Stage 1, building your aerobic base.

So you rest up and decide to register for a 5k. Your time can't be that fast because after all you haven't been doing much training since the marathon. But you blast a sub 20 5k and you didn't even think this was possible. It must have been the marathon training. Of course it was!

So this spurs you on to train more. After all if you can break 20 minutes without even training hard what can you do if you actually train? So you just do some random stuff like running quarters on a track as fast as you can. Two quarters a day will suffice. Hmm, that's boring, how about throw in an 800 in there every once in a while. There you go. You are well on your way to being a stud. After all, isn't a 5k about running fast? And what better training than doing a couple 400s and an 800 a couple of times a week for a total of 10 miles a week.

So let's see how your training is going by registering for another 5k. Bam! you break 19 minutes for a 5k! Who would have thought you c0uld do that! I mean, you spent a couple of years running for 30 minutes a day as hard as you could for 5 days a week and couldn't break 20 minutes and now you don't run as much and you are breaking 19 minutes. You are well on your way to being a stud. It is true, speed does kill. Now let's get those 400 times down so we speed up our 5k time. Let's run them harder.

So you keep up your training methodology and you can now consistently run in the low 18's for 5k. You are well on your way. Along the way you join a running group to meet more like-minded individuals and participate in relays and other grand activities. Who woulda thunk it? Running is fun! After another year of running you whittle your time down to sub 17:10 off of 10-15 miles of track work. Basically a few 400s and maybe some 800s and a mile thrown in their some days. But something isn't right. You know you can't go too much farther by farting around and experimentation. Also, you are reading all of this info about how to run faster and you don't understand a lot of it and other things that contradict themselves. You want to be one of the top runners but which methodology do you choose?

This is where you have to choose a local Olympian to guide and ensure your success. After all, they have been down that road before and you will be able to pick their brain. But be forewarned, you may think you are a stud and all but they will probably tell you that you are 25 pounds overweight and your primary goal will be to lose that weight. Take their advice and do everything they say. They will take your rudimentary ideas and mold them into a more advanced training philosophy. They will introduce foreign things to you like hills and long runs. You will be told to increase your mileage on a continual basis. You do some 5ks and you break 17 minutes for 5k and you feel good. You are well on your way to being a stud!

You like what you are doing so far. It's simple you just follow what your local Olympian says. He does the thinking and you do the following and whalaaa, the results come! And they are coming fast and furious. Can you keep up with the pace? But he tells you that you will reach a point where improvement will become harder to achieve. You don't care because you just want to continue on the ride you are currently on. You want more and more so you join his marathon program because you figure that if the marathon made you break 20 minutes before, what will it do for you now?

So you do the long runs. You make some buddies on these runs. You see what they are doing. You look forward to the weekend, not to party or lounge around, but to run and run longer. Surprisingly the runs are getting longer and longer but you don't crater. You continually take on the challenges for that week. Your new friends push the pace, a different guy each week, making the runs all that more exciting. During the week you do your mileage like a faithful servant and keep every commandment. Later on in the year you shock yourself and your coach by running a 16 low at a low key 5k. Wow how could this be? You are closer to the goal. It is attainable and you are well on your way to being a stud!

So you run your marathon. It is difficult but it is much easier the second time around. You break 3 hours and you don't feel totally cooked afterward. The marathon was great but now you want to see what you can really run for 5k and you can't wait. You end up waiting the appropriate amount of time to recover and you break 16 minutes for the 5k. Not only do you break it, you break it in style by running a 15:46. You now start to train with your local Olympian. You are training with the big boys now. Kudos you are well on your way to becoming a stud!

Since the marathon training worked before you decide to train for the marathon again. A few months before your 3rd marathon you run a 15:32! Kudos, you accomplished your goal. You are now a 15:30 guy. Mission accomplished, you are forever in your happy place. You can go home. You are finished because you are now a 15:30 guy. No wait, you aren't really finished. Because that was never really your goal to begin with. Your goal was to see how low you could go. Whether that be 18 flat or 15 flat you don't simply pack up and go home. You run now because it makes your body look the way you want it to look. You run because it makes your body feel how you want it to feel. You run because at the end of your hard work you get to see your results come to fruition. You run because you make good friends for life that respect your work ethic and you respect theirs. So you see, you never were looking for a final result or a destination or a great running time. The fun and fulfilment was always in the journey.

But if it is only the time of 15:30 that you are pursuing then the aforementioned plan will work as advertised but only if you follow it exactly as instructed above.

The Great Astros Game Escape

Word on the street is that he got caught and they made him watch the rest of the game.

Please Donate...

Help Americans compete in distance running by donating school buses to Kenyan children.

White Mens Shoes

I didn't know Puma had a white mens version. They look pretty cool. I googled around for a black mens version but strangely enough couldn't find any.

Sports Bra

I double dare one of you ladies to wear this at a race!!!

8.70 Miles Easy With A Soapy Ending

Mile 1	7:28
Mile 2	6:46
Mile 3	6:39
Mile 4	6:40
Mile 5	6:43
Mile 6	6:29
Mile 7	6:35
Mile 8	6:40
Mile 9	6:43
Total Average Pace	6:45

Hot humid, yuck. This was probably the worst day of the year as far as humidity is concerned. Anyway I digress, something funny happened to me today. My primary running clothes didn't dry in the dryer so I had to resort to my backup shorts that were in my running bag. The things is...in my running bag I carry all of my toiletries such as soap, etc. When I take a shower at the tennis center in the morning I try to dry my sponge but it doesn't completely dry. I put it in a plastic bag but sometimes a little bit of soapy water gets into the bottom of my bag. It usually dries up, no big deal right? Wrong. I take my backup shorts which seem to be dry at the time and start running in this hellish-like humid weather. After 3 miles something curious starts to happen. My shorts start to foam up and leak soap. So I ended up having quite a bit of soapy foam running down the side of my leg. The longer and sweatier I got, the foamier the shorts got. How embarrassing! While I was running I tried to wipe it away with my hand but it only made it worse. I saw quite a few people I knew around the trail, so they would see me and say hi, but then immediately look down the side of my legs and give me this look (Like what you got going on in there, never mind I don't want to know). Well because of this accident I believe I have invented the world's first self cleaning running shorts. You don't even need to shower afterwards. Soap is included. The sweatier you get, the fresher you smell!

12 Mile Long Run

Legs were trashed from the track workout yesterday. So I just ran 12 miles @ 7:45 pace and called it a day.

Those of you that think Sean is a nice guy, here is a recent exchange between me and him about today's long run.

Me: "You running today?"

Sean: "If you want to run @ 9 or 9:30 I might go."

Me: "My wife would kill me. I have to go to church."

Sean: "Pray for faster 800s next time."

Drum roll please...

How embarrasing...

Today at lunch I was at the salad bar and spilled vinegar on my pants (on the crotch area). I thought to myself "Oh brother". I saw a couple of ladies who worked there smile. As I hurriedly rushed toward the bathroom I could see everyone looking at my crotch. At first I'm thinking in my head "It's not what your thinking". After a while I'm thinking "Ya, I just wet myself! What!?" It's even more awesome when you go to the bathroom and have to wet the area even more to make sure it doesn't stain. So I'm walking out of the bathroom with a soggy crotch area on my pants. I'm thinking, am I in a movie that I'm not aware of here?!!!! So I try to block it out, but then the putrid smell of vinegar hangs with me all day. Not only that...I have brown vinegar stains on my crotch area. And I used to pride myself on being a good dresser.

9 miles easy

My world of order has been challenged. I'm still trying to get back on to my regular schedule. The Memorial Tennis center is under some construction. Sleep is at a premium these days. But you know what? The weather was nice. I'll take that as my positive for the week. I also saw a funny exchange today at lunch. I was at Whole Foods for lunch and there weren't any tables to eat lunch on because it was so crowded. This lady had found the last table and had set her things down. She was afraid that someone would move or take her things while she left briefly. So she did the usual thing. She asked the guy seated next to her if he could watch her stuff while she was gone. Here is the exchange:

Lady: "Excuse me."

Guy: Ignores the lady. Eating a sandwich with his head totally down in his sandwich.

Lady: The lady thinks he just doesn't hear her so she repeats "Excuse me."

Guy: Guy continues to eat his sandwich, face downward.

Lady: Now the lady leans over next to his ear and asks "Excuse me could you watch this for me, I'll be right back."

Guy: Still facing away he says, "I take no responsibility."

Honestly, I chuckled inside. Usually people are much nicer than this. And even if they aren't really nice, they are self conscious enough to say "Yes" even when they want to say no. This man made no qualms about saying no and didn't skip a beat. He just kept on eating without a care in the world. The lady paused, looked a little puzzled and finally resigned to leaving her items and hoping for the best. I mean how do you respond to something like that?

Anyway on that note here are my splits:

9 Miles Easy

Mile 1	8:05
Mile 2	7:39
Mile 3	7:37
Mile 4	7:25
Mile 5	7:29
Mile 6	7:15
Mile 7	7:16
Mile 8	7:12
Mile 9	7:10
Total Average Pace	7:28

Random Thoughts

Why is that I (the only runner out of all my coworkers) am the one least likely to run across the street as we walk to our lunch spot?

This is the "THE GUY" that looks like Obama, not me!

I get approached at least once a day about how I look like Obama. Finally, I get to point to someone who looks more like Obama than I do!

Thanks to my wife for sending me this picture and making my day a whole lot better :)

Seinfeld moment

I had a funny experience last night when I went to Whole Foods for dinner after work. I basically live there these days. It's about a minute from where I work and many people there know me by name and I know them as well. The reason I go there is that I have a lot of food allergies and Whole Foods gives me the most choices of what types of foods I can eat. Well anyway, I was sitting down eating dinner and I thought I recognized the guy sitting across from me talking on the phone. I sort of glanced at first but I couldn't be sure it was the guy I thought it was. The guy I was thinking of worked at Massage Envy and gave me a massage that was the best one I've had so far. He was experienced and schooled in sports related massages. He said he worked with the Houston Dynamo and did work with the team. His name was Graylin and we spent the whole session talking about soccer which was pretty interesting because I know very little about soccer. Well anyway back to the scene I'm trying to set. I spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out whether this guy was Graylin or not. I didn't want to stare and have a weird moment. So he got off the phone and was about to leave and I still wasn't sure if it was him or not but I wanted to know. After all I had been having some tightness in my hamstring area and Sean recommended that I get a massage soon. So let me paint this picture because here is where my funny experience begins. So the Graylin looking guy is getting up and getting ready to leave and there is another guy waiting by the microwave within earshot. So here is the conversation:

Me: "Excuse me...Excuse me...EXCUSE ME!"

Graylin looking guy turns around

Guy by microwave turns around

Me: "Is your name Graylin?"

Graylin: "Yes." He doesn't recognize me.

Guy by microwave turns back around

Me: "You gave me a massage a few months ago. It was the best massage I've ever had. I was a runner..."

Guy by microwave turns around

Graylin: "Oh yeah...I remember you." Graylin comes and sits down across from me.

We start talking and I tell him what I need and so he gives me his card and tells me to call him and then leaves.

I can only wonder what the guy by the microwave was thinking. Or anyone else that was within earshot. Now when I go to Whole Foods there will be at least one guy thinking, "There goes the gay version of Obama again".

"Not that there is anything wrong with that."

Recent conversation with my mom

Mom: Hey Bill.

Me: Hey mom.

Mom: Bill , have you had a checkup recently?

Me: As a matter of fact yes mom.

Mom: What were the results?

Me: Excellent health.

Mom: Great, because I was a little concerned about your weight.

Me: Don't worry about it Mom, I'm at 120 right now but I'm aiming to be at 105 in a few months.

Mom: What !?!?

Me: Yes, I need to get rid of this excess fat, this dead weight I have on me.

Mom: No! you are kidding Bill, what is this ?!?

Me: ...

Mom: You are kidding right !?!?!

Me: ...

Mom: BILL, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME ?!?!

Me: Yeah, mom I was kidding, I'm not 120 and I am well within my BMI range and life is good.

Mom: Don't lose any more weight Bill.

Me: I don't plan on it mom.

Mom: Great, I need for you to do something for me.

Me: What mom?

Mom: I need for you to help ME LOSE WEIGHT!!!

Billbama

As all of you know by now Barack Obama is our president elect right now. No news there. Here is the kicker as it relates to me. I've been told that I've looked like Obama consistently for a while now. While in my opinion (and my wife's) I don't look like the guy, I have been told this too often. I've been told this 3 or 4 times a week for 4 or 5 months now and in the beginning it was pretty amusing. Now recently it's increased to about 3 or 4 times a day. I have now realized it's going to only get worse now that he has been elected. Just a few days ago I was shopping and an older lady directly behind me asks another guy in line(pretty loudly). "Doesn't that guy in front of us look like a younger version of Obama?". The guy behind her responds, "Yes, he sure does, I was looking at him throughout the store thinking the same thing." I felt like telling these guys, "I can hear what your saying." This conversation also confirmed my suspicion throughout my trip to the store that I was being watched. As I was leaving the store and walking to my car in the parking lot an older fella says to me, "You look like you could be Obama's nephew!". I responded, "Oh really?". At work the other day when I walking around the corner I bump into a co-worker I don't know and she strikes up conversation by asking me, "Do you know who you look like?". I respond with "Barack Obama?". She says "No, Tiger Woods,....but now that you mention it you do look like Obama." It's got so bad that whenever we have meetings, even involving the executive management team, an Obama joke rears it's head all the time. I've even taken on the name BillBama at work. Yes, that's what some people call me. My kid is known as baby Bama. Speaking of my kid, one day while I was eating dinner and watching the news my 3 year old tells me "Daddy you look like Obana". Yes, he did say Obana, he is 3 and that's the way my 3 year old pronounces Obama. Wow, so now my own family is even saying I look like Obama. Speaking of my own family, my wife just sent me the endearing text message a few minutes ago, "I love you,...your my Obama! Apparently, looking like Obama can induce heart attacks. The other day I was at the gas station with my family when I had to make a pit stop to the bathroom. So I casually walk inside the gas station. An old guy beside starts to spasm and I turn and look at him to see what is going on. He screams "Good God!, You nearly gave me a heart attack, I thought you were Obama!". Apparently Obama was in town that week and so he saw me out of the corner of his eye and thought I was Obama for a split second. A colleague at work who knows that I am a runner had asked me if I wanted to do a promotion about being Obama's running mate (this was when Obama was in the primaries), you get it? Running mate (you can stop laughing now). A few months ago I get into a very crowded elevator at work and notice a woman who is freakishly about 6'4" tall. I decide to embarrass her by saying "Has anyone ever told you that you are tall?". She doesn't miss a beat and responds with, "Has anyone ever told you that you look like Obama?". I say no. She says "Hey everyone, he even talks like Obama." Everyone in the elevator starts to laugh in unison. She looks me up and down and says "He even dresses like Obama". The laughter continues and now I am starting to feel embarrassed. The elevator hit my floor and the door opens and I rush out and she peeks out and then I hear faintly, "He even walks like Obama". Everyone in the elevator is in tears with laughter and I could hear it all the way down the hall. Now after reading all of this you might understand why I have proceeded to preempt the Obama comments with the following solution. I have decided to wear the following shirt...