I am a curious sort of person, with what I describe as average internet skills (have you seen this site - not really the prettiest!), and I was curious - how can I find a copy of the content that was there, but now isn’t?  Certainly one would think of The Wayback Machine, which allows users to see sites as they were in their previous incarnation.  Trouble is, The Wayback Machine - much like Dr Peabody’s experience is more useful for longer term searches.

The answer that I found?  The Google cache.  Once you know the format on how the cache actually works, you can get a look at a page as it existed a few days/weeks ago.

Case in point?  Below you can find the entire Google Cached text of the Obama Administrations’ Agenda on the Economy It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 7 Nov 2008 06:00:35 GMT.

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The Problem

Wages are Stagnant as Prices Rise: While wages remain flat, the costs of basic necessities are increasing. The cost of in-state college tuition has grown 35 percent over the past five years. Health care costs have risen four times faster than wages over the past six years. And the personal savings rate is now the lowest it’s been since the Great Depression.

Tax Cuts for Wealthy Instead of Middle Class: The Bush tax cuts give those who earn over $1 million dollars a tax cut nearly 160 times greater than that received by middle-income Americans. At the same time, this administration has refused to tackle health care, education and housing in a manner that benefits the middle class.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s Plan

Jumpstart the Economy

• Enact a Windfall Profits Tax to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families:Barack Obama and Joe Biden will enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills. This relief would be a down payment on the Obama-Biden long-term plan to provide middle-class families with at least $1,000 per year in permanent tax relief.
• Provide $50 billion to Jumpstart the Economy and Prevent 1 Million Americans from Losing Their Jobs: This relief would include a $25 billion State Growth Fund to prevent state and local cuts in health, education, housing, and heating assistance or counterproductive increases in property taxes, tolls or fees. The Obama-Biden relief plan will also include $25 billion in a Jobs and Growth Fund to prevent cutbacks in road and bridge maintenance and fund school re­pair - all to save more than 1 million jobs in danger of being cut.

Plan to Revitalize the Economy

Jumpstart the Economy

• Enact a Windfall Profits Tax to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families:Barack Obama and Joe Biden will enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills. This relief would be a down payment on the Obama-Biden long-term plan to provide middle-class families with at least $1,000 per year in permanent tax relief.
• Provide $50 billion to Jumpstart the Economy and Prevent 1 Million Americans from Losing Their Jobs: This relief would include a $25 billion State Growth Fund to prevent state and local cuts in health, education, housing, and heating assistance or counterproductive increases in property taxes, tolls or fees. The Obama-Biden relief plan will also include $25 billion in a Jobs and Growth Fund to prevent cutbacks in road and bridge maintenance and fund school re­pair - all to save more than 1 million jobs in danger of being cut.

Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief

Obama and Biden will cut income taxes by $1,000 for working families to offset the payroll tax they pay.

• Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama and Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama and Biden will create a new “Making Work Pay” tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.
• Eliminate Income Taxes for Seniors Making Less than $50,000: Barack Obama will eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year. This proposal will eliminate income taxes for 7 million seniors and provide these seniors with an average savings of $1,400 each year. Under the Obama-Biden plan, 27 million American seniors will also not need to file an income tax return.
• Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans: Obama and Biden will dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes. Obama and Biden will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama-Biden proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.

Trade

Obama and Biden believe that trade with foreign nations should strengthen the American economy and create more American jobs. He will stand firm against agreements that undermine our economic security.

• Fight for Fair Trade: Obama and Biden will fight for a trade policy that opens up foreign markets to support good American jobs. They will use trade agreements to spread good labor and environmental standards around the world and stand firm against agreements like the Central American Free Trade Agreement that fail to live up to those important benchmarks. Obama and Biden will also pressure the World Trade Organization to enforce trade agreements and stop countries from continuing unfair government subsidies to foreign exporters and nontariff barriers on U.S. exports.
• Amend the North American Free Trade Agreement: Obama and Biden believe that NAFTA and its potential were oversold to the American people. They will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to fix NAFTA so that it works for American workers.
• Improve Transition Assistance: To help all workers adapt to a rapidly changing economy, Obama and Biden will update the existing system of Trade Adjustment Assistance by extending it to service industries, creating flexible education accounts to help workers retrain, and providing retraining assistance for workers in sectors of the economy vulnerable to dislocation before they lose their jobs.
• End Tax Breaks for Companies that Send Jobs Overseas: Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that companies should not get billions of dollars in tax deductions for moving their operations overseas. Obama and Biden will also fight to ensure that public contracts are awarded to companies that are committed to American workers.
• Reward Companies that Support American Workers: Barack Obama introduced the Patriot Employer Act of 2007 with Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to reward companies that create good jobs with good benefits for American workers. The legislation would provide a tax credit to companies that maintain or increase the number of full-time workers in America relative to those outside the US; maintain their corporate headquarters in America if it has ever been in America; pay decent wages; prepare workers for retirement; provide health insurance; and support employees who serve in the military.

Invest in the Manufacturing Sector and Create 5 Million New Green Jobs

• Invest in our Next Generation Innovators and Job Creators: Obama and Biden will create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to identify and invest in the most compelling advanced manufacturing strategies. The Fund will have a peer-review selection and award process based on the Michigan 21st Century Jobs Fund, a state-level initiative that has awarded over $125 million to Michigan businesses with the most innovative proposals to create new products and new jobs in the state.
• Double Funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership: The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) works with manufacturers across the country to improve efficiency, implement new technology and strengthen company growth. This highly-successful program has engaged in more than 350,000 projects across the country and in 2006 alone, helped create and protect over 50,000 jobs. But despite this success, funding for MEP has been slashed by the Bush administration. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will double funding for the MEP so its training centers can continue to bolster the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers.
• Invest In A Clean Energy Economy And Create 5 Million New Green Jobs: Obama and Biden will invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial scale renewable energy, invest in low emissions coal plants, and begin transition to a new digital electricity grid. The plan will also invest in America’s highly-skilled manufacturing workforce and manufacturing centers to ensure that American workers have the skills and tools they need to pioneer the first wave of green technologies that will be in high demand throughout the world.
• Create New Job Training Programs for Clean Technologies: The Obama-Biden plan will increase funding for federal workforce training programs and direct these programs to incorporate green technologies training, such as advanced manufacturing and weatherization training, into their efforts to help Americans find and retain stable, high-paying jobs. Obama and Biden will also create an energy-focused youth jobs program to invest in disconnected and disadvantaged youth.
• Boost the Renewable Energy Sector and Create New Jobs: The Obama-Biden plan will create new federal policies, and expand existing ones, that have been proven to create new American jobs. Obama and Biden will create a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that will require 25 percent of American electricity be derived from renewable sources by 2025, which has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs on its own. Obama and Biden will also extend the Production Tax Credit, a credit used successfully by American farmers and investors to increase renewable energy production and create new local jobs.

New Jobs Through National Infrastructure Investment

Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that it is critically important for the United States to rebuild its national transportation infrastructure – its highways, bridges, roads, ports, air, and train systems – to strengthen user safety, bolster our long-term competitiveness and ensure our economy continues to grow.

• Create a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will address the infrastructure challenge by creating a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to expand and enhance, not supplant, existing federal transportation investments. This independent entity will be directed to invest in our nation’s most challenging transportation infrastructure needs. The Bank will receive an infusion of federal money, $60 billion over 10 years, to provide financing to transportation infrastructure projects across the nation. These projects will create up to two million new direct and indirect jobs and stimulate approximately $35 billion per year in new economic activity.

Technology, Innovation and Creating Jobs

Barack Obama and Joe Biden will increase federal support for research, technology and innovation for companies and universities so that American families can lead the world in creating new advanced jobs and products.

• Invest in the Sciences: Barack Obama and Joe Biden support doubling federal funding for basic research and changing the posture of our federal government from being one of the most anti-science administrations in American history to one that embraces science and technology. This will foster home-grown innovation, help ensure the competitiveness of US technology-based businesses, and ensure that 21st century jobs can and will grow in America.
• Make the Research and Development Tax Credit Permanent: Barack Obama and Joe Biden want investments in a skilled research and development workforce and technology infrastructure to be supported here in America so that American workers and communities will benefit. Obama and Biden want to make the Research and Development tax credit permanent so that firms can rely on it when making decisions to invest in domestic R&D over multi-year timeframes.
• Deploy Next-Generation Broadband: Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we can get broadband to every community in America through a combination of reform of the Universal Service Fund, better use of the nation’s wireless spectrum, promotion of next-generation facilities, technologies and applications, and new tax and loan incentives.

Support Small Business

• Provide Tax Relief for Small Businesses and Start Up Companies: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will eliminate all capital gains taxes on start-up and small businesses to encourage innovation and job creation. Obama and Biden will also support small business owners by providing a $500 “Making Work Pay” tax credit to almost every worker in America. Self-employed small business owners pay both the employee and the employer side of the payroll tax, and this measure will reduce the burdens of this double taxation.
• Create a National Network of Public-Private Business Incubators: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will support entrepreneurship and spur job growth by creating a national network of public-private business incubators. Business incubators facilitate the critical work of entrepreneurs in creating start-up companies. Obama and Biden will invest $250 million per year to increase the number and size of incubators in disadvantaged communities throughout the country.

Labor

Obama and Biden will strengthen the ability of workers to organize unions. He will fight for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Obama and Biden will ensure that his labor appointees support workers’ rights and will work to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers. Obama and Biden will also increase the minimum wage and index it to inflation to ensure it rises every year.

• Ensure Freedom to Unionize: Obama and Biden believe that workers should have the freedom to choose whether to join a union without harassment or intimidation from their employers. Obama cosponsored and is strong advocate for the Employee Free Choice Act, a bipartisan effort to assure that workers can exercise their right to organize. He will continue to fight for EFCA’s passage and sign it into law.
• Fight Attacks on Workers’ Right to Organize: Obama has fought the Bush National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) efforts to strip workers of their right to organize. He is a cosponsor of legislation to overturn the NLRB’s “Kentucky River” decisions classifying hundreds of thousands of nurses, construction, and professional workers as “supervisors” who are not protected by federal labor laws.
• Protect Striking Workers: Obama and Biden support the right of workers to bargain collectively and strike if necessary. They will work to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers, so workers can stand up for themselves without worrying about losing their livelihoods.
• Raise the Minimum Wage: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will raise the minimum wage, index it to inflation and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit to make sure that full-time workers earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs.

Protect Homeownership and Crack Down on Mortgage Fraud

Obama and Biden will crack down on fraudulent brokers and lenders. They will also make sure homebuyers have honest and complete information about their mortgage options, and they will give a tax credit to all middle-class homeowners.

• Create a Universal Mortgage Credit: Obama and Biden will create a 10 percent universal mortgage credit to provide homeowners who do not itemize tax relief. This credit will provide an average of $500 to 10 million homeowners, the majority of whom earn less than $50,000 per year.
• Ensure More Accountability in the Subprime Mortgage Industry: Obama has been closely monitoring the subprime mortgage situation for years, and introduced comprehensive legislation over a year ago to fight mortgage fraud and protect consumers against abusive lending practices. Obama’s STOP FRAUD Act provides the first federal definition of mortgage fraud, increases funding for federal and state law enforcement programs, creates new criminal penalties for mortgage professionals found guilty of fraud, and requires industry insiders to report suspicious activity.
• Mandate Accurate Loan Disclosure: Obama and Biden will create a Homeowner Obligation Made Explicit (HOME) score, which will provide potential borrowers with a simplified, standardized borrower metric (similar to APR) for home mortgages. The HOME score will allow individuals to easily compare various mortgage products and understand the full cost of the loan.
• Close Bankruptcy Loophole for Mortgage Companies: Obama and Biden will work to eliminate the provision that prevents bankruptcy courts from modifying an individual’s mortgage payments. They believe that the subprime mortgage industry, which has engaged in dangerous and sometimes unscrupulous business practices, should not be shielded by outdated federal law.

Address Predatory Credit Card Practices

Obama and Biden will establish a five-star rating system so that every consumer knows the risk involved in every credit card. They also will establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights to stop credit card companies from exploiting consumers with unfair practices.

• Create a Credit Card Rating System to Improve Disclosure: Obama and Biden will create a credit card rating system, modeled on five-star systems used for other consumer products, to provide consumers an easily identifiable ranking of credit cards, based on the card’s features. Credit card companies will be required to display the rating on all application and contract materials, enabling consumers to quickly understand all of the major provisions of a credit card without having to rely exclusively on fine print in lengthy documents.
• Establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights to Protect Consumers: Obama and Biden will create a Credit Card Bill of Rights to protect consumers. The Obama-Biden plan will:
  • Ban Unilateral Changes
  • Apply Interest Rate Increases Only to Future Debt
  • Prohibit Interest on Fees
  • Prohibit “Universal Defaults”
  • Require Prompt and Fair Crediting of Cardholder Payments

Reform Bankruptcy Laws

Obama and Biden will reform our bankruptcy laws to protect working people, ban executive bonuses for bankrupt companies, and require disclosure of all pension investments.

• Cap Outlandish Interest Rates on Payday Loans and Improve Disclosure: Obama and Biden will extend a 36 percent interest cap to all Americans. They will require lenders to provide clear and simplified information about loan fees, payments and penalties, which is why they’ll require lenders to provide this information during the application process.
• Encourage Responsible Lending Institutions to Make Small Consumer Loans: Obama and Biden will encourage banks, credit unions and Community Development Financial Institutions to provide affordable short-term and small-dollar loans and to drive unscrupulous lenders out of business.
• Reform Bankruptcy Laws to Protect Families Facing a Medical Crisis: Obama and Biden will create an exemption in bankruptcy law for individuals who can prove they filed for bankruptcy because of medical expenses. This exemption will create a process that forgives the debt and lets the individuals get back on their feet.

Work/Family Balance

Obama and Biden will double funding for after-school programs, expand the Family Medical Leave Act, provide low-income families with a refundable tax credit to help with their child-care expenses, and encourage flexible work schedules.

• Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act: The FMLA covers only certain employees of employers with 50 or more employees. Obama and Biden will expand it to cover businesses with 25 or more employees. They will expand the FMLA to cover more purposes as well, including allowing workers to take leave for elder care needs; allowing parents up to 24 hours of leave each year to participate in their children’s academic activities; and expanding FMLA to cover leave for employees to address domestic violence.
• Encourage States to Adopt Paid Leave: As president, Obama will initiate a strategy to encourage all 50 states to adopt paid-leave systems. Obama and Biden will provide a $1.5 billion fund to assist states with start-up costs and to help states offset the costs for employees and employers.
• Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities: Obama and Biden will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, to serve a million more children. Obama and Biden will include measures to maximize performance and effectiveness across grantees nationwide.
• Expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit: The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit provides too little relief to families that struggle to afford child care expenses. Obama and Biden will reform the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit by making it refundable and allowing low-income families to receive up to a 50 percent credit for their child care expenses.
• Protect Against Caregiver Discrimination: Workers with family obligations often are discriminated against in the workplace. Obama and Biden will enforce the recently-enacted Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines on caregiver discrimination.
• Expand Flexible Work Arrangements: Obama and Biden will create a program to inform businesses about the benefits of flexible work schedules; help businesses create flexible work opportunities; and increase federal incentives for telecommuting. Obama and Biden will also make the federal government a model employer in terms of adopting flexible work schedules and permitting employees to request flexible arrangements.

Barack Obama’s Record

• Housing: In the U.S. Senate, Obama introduced the STOP FRAUD Act to increase penalties for mortgage fraud and provide more protections for low-income homebuyers, well before the current subprime crisis began.
• Predatory Lending: In the Illinois State Senate, Obama called attention to predatory lending issues. Obama sponsored legislation to combat predatory payday loans, and he also was credited with lobbying the state to more closely regulate some of the most egregious predatory lending practices.
• American Jobs: Barack Obama introduced the Patriot Employer Act of 2007 to provide a tax credit to companies that maintain or increase the number of full-time workers in America relative to those outside the US; maintain their corporate headquarters in America; pay decent wages; prepare workers for retirement; provide health insurance; and support employees who serve in the military.

I have been thinking lot about Tuesday’s historic election, mostly in terms of how open and transparent the White House will -hopefully - become.  I have been using the new site Change.gov as an example of the openess that is to come.  (Change.gov is a site that was put up by Obama’s team and looks to be their primary channel of communication for the Obama Administration.)  In partiuclar, there is a section on that website where you can review any of the President-Elect’s postion on a variety of subjects including the war, the economy, gun control, etc.  Here’s the odd thing:  as of this morning (07:30 AM PST 20081109) the Agenda seems to have been removed with no explanation.  I have been able to find only one other site that mentions the removal, and offer’s a plausible explanation:

…it could be that because of campaign finance regulations, the text from a campaign website can’t be copied wholesale to a 501(c)(4)’s website.

I am not raising the alarm bells here, but I would have expected such a saavy web team such as Obama’s to know better than to simply pull web content without explanation.  (In fact, Obama’s own site has an identical(?) list of issues.)  What’s my point here?  If there is some legal reason for removal of the information, simply state as much.  The absence of such a statement leads to speculation, which in turn undermines credibility, which is something we certainly don’t want to see happen for our Commander-in-Chief, ever again.

Universal Camping

Originally uploaded by Fort Photo

The Mercury News is reporting that the Girl Scouts and Brownies from Santa Clara County will be camping out on Saturday, October 25th. What’s odd about that? Nothing really, it’s what Girl Scouts do. Only these are Girl Scouts from Santa Clara Valley and while at one time the valley was a wide open expanse of grass and fields, it’s now largely strip malls and pavement, not really ideal for campouts. The solution? A sleepover at the Westfield mall.

The Scouts and their troop leaders and chaperones will be spending 12 hours at the shopping center participating in events that include shopping, eating, a dance party and learning about the Earth’s climate change with reps from the Climate Project.

I wonder if they will calculate the climatic impact on running the a/c, lights, etc for their camping trip vs simply sleeping under the stars….

• Dynamic browsing - Easily drag and rearrange tabs.  You can even drag a tab into a new window.
• Single box - Everything is handled in the URL bar (look  familiar?  This feature has been in place when using Google searches for a while now and was an indicator of some field testing (?) in advance of the launch of Chrome.
• Ingognito Mode - You can mark a page as ‘Incognito’ which means that no history of the page will be stored on your local machine.  (Websites can still identify and collect information about you though) 

I’ll be conducting a more through review, along with millions of my closest friends I am sure.  I’ll share more in due time.  I also have posted the TOS in case you want to know what the G-plex is actually doing with your information.  Now back to work!

Discus Thrower

Originally uploaded by technicolor

I have been pondering this for a few days now, and thought that this would make a good blog post. You see, now that I am running, everyone is calling me a ‘runner’, problem is I just don’t think of myself as a runner. I mean, runners are insane, they get up run, eat, run, crap, and they run.  They run great distances in punishing conditions, and for some reason enjoy it. I don’t think of myself in that crowd.

I also have a screen name on just about every online service imaginable of mtnbkr1, short for mountain biker. I chose this screen name back in college when you had to have a 7 character name, including a number. I was riding my mountain bike quite extensively then, and rather than switch after graduation, I simply stuck with it. Thing is, I don’t consider myself a mountain biker either. (Mostly because I don’t ride very often anymore - something else I am going to change). I also have been competing in motorcycle road racing with the AFM (come find me riding the #424 machine!) although I don’t consider myself a road racer either.

When people refer to those terms - runner, mountain biker, road racer - they seem mutually exclusive. If you are one, you can’t be another. I rejected all of those labels mostly because while I am good at those things, I am no Michael Phelps or Dean Karnasis. I guess where I am going with this is that I came to realize that I am none of these things, yet all of these things and more.

I am an Athlete.

My biggest fan

Originally uploaded by mtnbkr1

So - I ran my first half marathon today. Whop-de-freakin-do.

HELL YEAH Woop-de-freakin-do! I surprised even myself on this run. After getting up at o-dark-thirty to go run 13.1 (actually 13.27 according to my Garmin) with oh, about 10,000 of my closest friends, we started out along San Francisco’s Embaradero on what turned out to be a fabulous day for running. The first couple of miles we cruised out of the gates, running what would turn out to be my overall avg - about a 9:37 pace. We spot a lady who had pinned on what seemed like about 2 cases (!) of goo to her belt, and quickly took bets as to by which mile they would fall off. (I won, as we see her a short time  later running with all the goos she could carry in her hand.)  At Mile 4.5, we encounter our first - and only - supporter conga line.  I nudge my friend Chris, and we sprint down, slapping everyone in the hands (including the paws of a somewhat sexy tiger). About mile 5, my cohorts decided that their bladders had enough, and they pulled in to make a pitstop. Deciding that I didn’t need any of that sort of activity, I waved them goodbye and I kicked it up a notch to a 9:00 for the next mile, and paid for it promptly during mile 6, where I clocked my first 10+ mile (10:04). I think it was the excitement of getting to run on Golden Gate bridge that tempted me to turn it up.

I then settled back down and clocked a few short 9:00 miles, as we wound through the beautiful Presideo, coming down the backside on mile eleven we encountered a steep decline where I posted my fastest laptime - a smokin 8:45. I would rue this as miles 12 and 13 would eventually turn out to be my slowest, both coming in at 10:30.

As I came upon mile 13, I kept looking at my trusty Garmin, (which only hours before I figured out how to program to flash the last mile time as I completed it) and it said 13.0!  Great, only a tenth of a mile to go!  I started picking it up, the crowd standing in their warm blankets with coffee in hand watching barely clothed runners huff and puff through the park. I looked ahead, but there is no finish line! It must be around the next bend I tell myself, looking at my Garmin which is now beaming a cheerful 13.15. WTF?! Did I miss a turn? I hope to God that I didn’t inadvertently wind up on the full marathon course, else they are going to be picking up on dead body come around mile 15!

It’s mile 13.20 and finally there it is rising out of the San Francisco fog - the finish line! I grumble in my head obscenities directed at both my now trusty-with-a-healthy-dose-of-suspicion Garmin and the workers who setup the course, confident that there’s a conspiracy afoot just to mess with runners who are to fatigued to figure it all out.

I then hear - long before I see - my wife and daughter cheering scant yards in front of the finish line, giving me that extra boost I needed to put this madness to and end.

I stomp my foot squarely between the timing tracks carefully laid out on the ground and all of a sudden it hits me. I just ran the SF freaking half marathon, a full 13.1/13.27 miles (depending) and I feel good!**

Legs are fine, I am not puking, and it appears that all my facilities are working just fine. Sweet! My lack of serious training, my hip disorder, and my general scardy-cat instincts nonwithstanding, I finished this thing. Under my own power no less!

Would I race this thing again? As of today, no way. I don’t really feel like putting on my shoes truth be told. I am sure that will go away by morning, and that friends and family will cheer me on at the next race and support me as they did in this one.

FINAL STATS

Total Distance / Time -   13.1 miles / 2:07:41
Pace    9:37 avg
Best Mile 8:45
Calories: 1772

**When asked shortly after crossing the finish line if I felt like I could go on and finish the second half too I cheerfully replied with a F#$% No!

Foggy morning run to Golden Gate Bridge

Originally uploaded by digiTofu

So I am writing this on my way to SF to pick up my race pack for tomorrow’s half marathon. I chose this image as it sort of represents alot of things that I am feeling right now about race. There’s the bridge, that I’ll be running to an fro on and spending 5 intimate miles on, under and around. There’s the fog which aside from the blustery coldness (if you know me at all you know what a wimp I am when it comes to cold weather), represents the unknown. You can only see so far ahead, and there’s a mystery as to what is beyond the visible. Will I be able to finish? Will I have fun? Will I further injure myself? Will I ever, ever sign up for anything like this again?

Right now I am nursing an IT band ‘thing’ - I am not prepared to call it an injury at this point, but after tomorrow, I just may change my diagnosis. I have been stretching it and rolling it, poking and prodding it but like a stubborn child, it appears that it is going to do things it’s own way. I plan on taking some meds, so I can at least ignore it during the run, hopefully that will help. I am prepared to stop running during the race if it comes to that, but I’d really feel like a chump if I quit. I guess I’ll know more tomorrow!

in the long run…

Originally uploaded by kreativekell

I have abandoned this blog long enough. For the one reader that is still following along, thank you for your patience.

I turned 39 over the weekend, and I figured it was as good as time as any to resurrect this blog. I am making quite a few changes in my life, most of which I hope to have solid long before my 40th birthday in just 363 days from now. Writing in my blog at least once a week is one of them.

Next Sunday I will join 2 really good friends on my first half marathon race in San Francisco. There was a time when I thought that 13.1 miles was pretty much insanity, but after a 10 mile weekend run with my wife, I realized that I can probably pull this thing off. I will be sure to write and keep you updated. I’ll also post a few pics on my flickr site as well.