Vail was awesome as usual.  Danny and Gil went with us this year.  Todd and Brittany could make it because of their wedding and honeymoon.  The first two days were pretty good.  Vail had some recent snow so the base held up pretty well as the weather warmed up over a few days.  Tuesday was the worst day at Vail for the week (as if a day in Vail can be bad ).  It finally got so warm that the snow started to break down and get really heavy by mid-afternoon.

We took Wednesday off to rest and then hit Beaver Creek on Thursday.  Gil and I hadn’t skied there before.  Neither had my buddy Jamie that came up from Devner to hang with us.  At Beaver Creek, the snow was horrible.  Actually, calling it snow isn’t even fair.  That mountain was one giant ice cube that was borderline ski-able.  I’d set my edges on an average black and they wouldn’t even hold.  I’d just keep sliding down the mountain.  Don’t get me started on trying to turn at speed; ridiculous.  It was really disappointing because the mountain itself was pretty awesome.  I really want to go back when there’s some snow ’cause it seems like it would be sweet!

Our last day in Vail was epic.  We got 10 inches of snow over night and into the day on Friday.  10″ of official snow means it’s going to be deeper in a lot of places around the mountain.  One of our first runs was down a double-black called Prima.  The snow was up to my knees in places going down that thing.  It was unbelievable.  I hadn’t skied in snow that deep before and it’s one of the coolest feelings.  You skis don’t feel like they’re on the mountain, but floating above it.  It’s pretty dang hard on the legs because you have to lean back to keep your ski tips from digging in, but it was awesome.

I think the best part of this trip was finally getting to see Cooper on skis.  That kid was a champ.  He’s not even 3 1/2 years old but he skid in ski school for 5 days straight.  After the first day, he was completely wiped out.  The other 4 days though, he’d get out of school, rest for about 20 minutes and then he’d be literally jumping on the bed and off the couches and up and down the stairs.  He had a total blast!

The next two weekends were spent at bachelor parties for Todd, Wendy’s younger brother.  What happens on those stays on the road so….moving along .

Between the parties and the wedding, I got the chance to run the Cap 10k for the first time.  It seems like every year there’s something that comes up at the last minute that prevents me from running it.  This year the stars aligned and I’m glad they did.

I signed up late, but trained really hard for it.  Most of my training runs were in the 5 – 6 mile range and I trained for speed and hills.  On the morning of the run, things were iffy with the weather.  It was warm with a lot of mist and fog.  I was worried that part way through the run the sun would come out and I’d e hard-boiled by the end.  Lucky for me, that didn’t happen.  The clouds actually got thicker and a steady mist started to fall which was great.  It stayed cool and kept me cool through the entire run.

The first 3 miles of that route are pretty hilly.  I have a tendency to go out too fast so I was sure to go out easy.  Having never run this course before, I wasn’t sure of quite what to expect here.  Luckily, the first three miles include the last 2 of the Austin Half marathon that I ran in February of this year.  The course turned South after crossing under Mopac and it was downhill from there.  I actually felt really good for the whole run up until about the last half mile or so.  I was pretty much going all out and had to dig pretty deep to stay strong through the finish.

My finish time was 53:33 which was a new personal record for me at the 10k distance by over 2 1/2 minutes.  Considering I started training late, I was really happy with that time.  I think my next goal is going to be breaking 50:00.  Of course, that won’t be until after next year’s marathon(s).

Todd and Brittany’s wedding was the weekend after the Cap 10k.  We went up for the rehearsal and all that.  They had a really good wedding that came off without a hitch, well, except theirs of course.  This past weekend was a baby shower for Wendy and a diaper party for the guys at our place.  We had family over, grilled out, threw some washers and had a generally great time.

Now we’re hoping for a few calm weekends before Skyler gets here.  The official due date is 5/23 so we’re definitely in the home stretch here.  Training wise, I start doing CrossFit on Monday at 6:30 AM.  I’m not going into what it is in this post so Google it.  Rest assured I’ll update with more details later on.

Until next time….

©2012 Jeff Mery. All Rights Reserved.

Last weekend 9 of my friends and I ran the 2010 Texas Independence Relay.  This isn’t your average team relay race.  The TIR is a 203.2 mile long relay that starts where the Texas Revolution began (Gonzales, TX) and finishes where Texas Independence was won (San Jacinto Monument, La Porte, TX).  The route is broken up into 40 legs of varying lengths (2.3 to 8.78 miles) plus a Prologue (1.15 miles) and an Epilogue (0.38 miles).

Before I go any further, I want to say that this race is hands-down the best race I have ever participated in; period.  New PR at any distance?  Nope.  Finishing my first half-marathon?  Nope.  Finishing my first marathon?  Uh-uh.  The atmosphere, the volunteers, the towns along the way, and, most importantly, my team made this a totally unforgettable experience.  Okay, enough of that for now…

For such a large undertaking, we really signed up pretty late in the game.  A lot of teams spend all year getting organized for this thing and we decided to commit during the first week of February.  That didn’t leave us much time to get everything ready.  Luckily, one of our running coaches, Tony, stepped up and became our team captain.  Tony ran the TIR in 2009 so he had a really good idea of what we needed to take care of before, during, and after the race.  We didn’t have one logistical issue at all over the whole weekend and it really is all thanks to Tony.

The race has some pretty tight rules, one of them gives the race a pretty unique twist:  Each team is allowed just two team vehicles on the course.  This means that all 10 of us, plus our food, water, and gear, had to fit into whatever vehicles we had.  To make things easy, we rented two of those big, 15-passenger vans (just like nearly every other team out there).  The fun part comes on Saturday night where, for safety reasons, only one team vehicle is allowed on course.  At that point we have to shuffle people around so some can sleep and the rest can keep running.  More on that later.

On the Friday before the race actually starts, 8 of us met together, piled up in our vans and headed down to Gonzales.  The ride down was pretty uneventful except for Dan asking, “Are we there yet?” every five minutes.  Once we got to town, we had about an hour or so to kill before the pre-race pasta party started.  Between cupcakes from Dan’s wife (Thanks, Lauren!), shoe polish for the van windows (Thanks, Karen!), and a 12-pack of beer (Thanks, Tony!), we were in pretty good shape.  Then the “Mullets” showed up…

I don’t have pics of these guys yet, and words just aren’t going to do them justice, but here it goes anyway.  As we’re standing around waiting for things to kick off, one of the other teams comes around the corner.  10 or 12 guys in skin-tight, cut-off jean shorts with tank tops, fake tattoos, and beer guts hanging out.  The crown jewel is the mullet wig that each one of them has on.  Epic.  It was like some sort of disaster; we wanted to look away but were completely mesmerized at what we were seeing.  Then they started talking.  Let’s just say they were totally into the part they had written for themselves .  After their spell wore off, we made our way inside for the pasta party.

A pretty good number of teams made it out to the pasta dinner.  The food was fantastic and most teams were having a tasty adult beverage or two (or 10 in the case of the Mullets).  We still had a few left ourselves so a couple of us finished off what we had.  Now, I don’t drink the night before a run.  I can’t do it.  My body just says, “Sorry buddy.  This ain’t happening” when I try to go the next morning so I’ve just given up on it completely.  On the other hand there are folks like Tony and Karen.  Now Tony is a really experienced runner.   He’s run several marathons, tons of relays and just about everything you can think of.  He’s also our team captain and running coach so we trust him.  No one really new about Karen though.  I mean we knew and liked her, but had never really hung out with her outside the running group.  One beer turns to two, turns to three, turns to six.  Now those of us still at the table are trying to figure out who is going to run Karen’s legs on Saturday.  A little worry has set in.  Good thing we ran out of beer .

Once we finished up at the pasta party, we went to our home for the night; a middle school gym built in who-knows-when.  It was a pretty uneventful night.  I even managed to sleep a little despite the nerves and seemingly rock-hard floor through my sleeping bag and camp mat.  At 5 something in the morning the lights come on and it was game time.  We were in pretty high spirits, but you could tell everyone was pretty nervous.  No one but Tony had any idea of what we were getting into.  As we’re headed to breakfast BOOOOOMMM!  The canon to start the first group is fired and we realize that the run has officially started.

The teams start staggered from one another, based on estimated pace, to try and have everyone finish near the same time.  The slower teams go out first and the faster teams go out later on something like 2 or 4 minute intervals.  Our start time wasn’t until 7:50 AM which was probably 2 hours after the first group started.  At the start, each team poses by the canon in front of a huge Texas flag for a team picture.  Then the team captain gets to start us out.  Once the canon (or gong….don’t ask) goes, the team time starts and we’re actually racing.

Leg one is a 1.15 mile long prologue.  The entire team runs it together and it’s meant to be sort of a parade down the main streets in Gonzales.  I had the first real leg of the relay so I asked us to start intentionally slow to keep me from going out like a jackrabbit and bonking part way through my leg.  About 3/4 of the way through, two runners from the team that started behind us go flying by.  Now, this surprises us, because first, they can’t be that much faster than us just based on their start time.  Second, it’s kind of bad-class to go blowing by people on the prologue.  Unless you’re a truly competitive team in it to win, it’s really meant as a friendly start to the race.  We just got passed.  We’re a little upset.  You won’t like us when we’re upset.  1.15 miles done.  Prologue over.  Game ON!

At the end of the prologue, the rest of the team peels of to go back to the vans and I head out on my first leg: 4.26 miles out of Gonzales towards Shiner, TX.   We’ve gone out slow in the prologue so now I’m feeling warmed up and ready to go.  I picked up the pace from our 10:00/mile prologue to about a 9:45/mile.  There were a few hills that I wasn’t really expecting in that first mile so I just kept it there for the second mile too.  At two miles in, I’m actually feeling really, really good.  I pick up the pace again to about a 9:15/mile.  Considering the injuries I had this past season, that’s a pretty good pace for me right now.  At the end of mile 3, I don’t really feel a thing, so I pick up the pace again to about 8:50/mile.  That’s haulin’ the mail for me.  Then I notice that I’ve run up on someone and am getting ready to pass them.  Cool!  It’s the guy that blew by us in the prologue.  Payback!  He’s really sucking wind at this point and is literally waving me around him.

Him:  <Gasp> Go on dude <Gasp> I went out too fast. <Gasp>

Voice In My Head:  Ya think!?  Serves you right!

Me:  No worries man.  You okay?  Got everything you need?  I’ve got water and gels if you need or want some.

Him:  <Gasp> Yeah <Gasp> I’m good.

Me:  <Gets a slight smirk on my face once I get just past him>  You want the distance?

Him:  <Gasp> Yeah <Gasp>

Me:  Just about a mile to go!  You can do it man.  Finish this thing strong!

Him:  <Gasp> Thanks <Gasp>

Once we finished our ever so brief conversation, I sped up again to about an 8:30/mile to emphasize my point .

Quick Aside:  I’m not a jerk on the course.  All of the teams and runners are out there together.  It’s really almost like a huge family between all of the teams.

By the time I get within about 1/2 a mile of the finish for my leg, I can hear people cheering runners in front of me.  I finish at pretty much a dead sprint.  My first leg time including the prologue was a 9:24/mile pace.  I’m totally dumbfounded.  I hadn’t run anything faster than a 9:45/mile since like December.  My team was surprised too; they run with me every weekend and know how fast, or slow rather, I am.  The entire team is now exited and pumped as Amber tears off on leg two.

Leg two, three, and four go pretty much like we thought they would Amber, Dan, and Andrew are all really strong runners.  They run extremely well and pass quite a few more teams on the way.  Now it’s time for Karen’s first run.  It’s a short one, but after the previous night’s festivities, it’s also the moment of truth.  We’re not really sure what to expect.  She takes the hand off from Andrew and heads out.  She looks pretty good so we take off to the next exchange which happens to be the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, TX, home of Shiner Bock and all of the other wonderful Shiner beers.

At an exchange, the next person running gets prepped to go.  They make sure they’ve got everything they need/want and get warmed up as best they can.  At the brewery, Tony is warming up and we’re taking pictures by the huge stacks of empty kegs outside the brewery proper.  We figure it’s going to take Karen about 24:30 to finish her leg.  This is based on what she told us for her 10k time which is about a 10:00/mile pace.  19:30 into her leg, Karen comes around the corner on a tear.  Tony has barely had time to get his shoes on and has to literally run from the vans to the exchange in time to make the tag with Karen and start his leg.

Karen just ran her leg in a 7:55/mile pace.  We’re astounded.  When she reads the pace off her Garmin, we all have a moment of insight:  Karen is beer powered.  Those tasty oat sodas from the night before?  She knew *exactly* what she was doing  .  And it wasn’t a fluke thing either.  She ran all of her legs way faster than she herself thought she was ever capable of.

We kept going and rotating runners throughout the day according to our assigned legs.  On average, our team was running a minute faster per mile than we expected to based on our past individual performances.  I can’t explain it other than the team was the reason we were running faster.  No one wanted to fail.  No one wanted to be the person that let the team down.  Everyone gave everything they had on every single leg and it showed.  Personally, my second leg was faster than the first by 0:28/mile at an 8:53/mile pace.  My third leg was at an 8:52/mile pace.  Those are both a full minute faster than anything I had run in a year.

At leg 17, things got interesting.  This is where we had to split up and one van got to rest.  Steph, Andrew, Amber, and Dan took the second van ahead to another middle school (this one in Weimar, TX) to clean up and rest.  Tony, Brandon, Dustin, Karen, Belinda and I got the honor (?) of running the middle-of-the-night legs through the countryside.  Outside of a lot of dead skunks and Dustin getting chased by dogs (!) there wasn’t anything special that happened over night.  Unless you count the pizza.  Oh God…the pizza.

The start of leg 16, before we split up, is in Columbus, TX.  This is a decent sized town and the only real opportunity to get food for the team over night.  Based on his experience last year, Tony stops to buy pizza for both vans.  We were good; we got veggie and supreme for the night van and supreme and meat lovers for the rest van.  It tasted awesome and we didn’t think anything of it.  My third leg was the last of the single-van legs around midnight.  I had some pizza before that, ran just fine (my fastest pace actually), and didn’t think anything of it.  I had another slice when I got done because I was so famished.  Once I finished we went to the school, got cleaned up, and then headed to where we needed to meet our other van a few hours up the road.

We pull into the parking lot by the next exchange and it starts.  I don’t remember if it was me, Belinda, or Karen first but none of us felt good.  It started with some nausea and then the Montezuma’s Revenge kicked in.  Everyone that ate the pizza was in rough shape; me, Karen, and especially Belinda.  When the second van rolls in around 2:00 AM or so, we realize they’ve been hit too.  Nothing like running for 18 hours and then feeling like you’ve been punched in the gut.

Luckily for Karen, the next leg was her 4th and final one.  She dug down deep and finished really strong which gave hope to the rest of us.  Belinda was two legs later.  She had to run in the dark, on a trail, through a wooded park while trying not to fall over sick for 5.6 miles.  By the time Belinda finished, I thought I was done for.  I would have been better off dead.  I still had a few hours before my last leg so I tried to get some sleep and prayed things would clear up before I had to run again in the morning.

I woke up a few exchanges later and felt better, or so I thought.  Throughout the race, teams had been pranking one another by tagging other teams’ vans in various ways.  The most common was to just write something using shoe polish when the team wasn’t looking, but stickers and other stuff were also used.  In this case, when I got up, it was the “other stuff” that put me over the edge.  I got out of the van and was hit by a horrendous smell; the smell of something rotting.  Something that was once alive rotting.  Looking behind the van next to us, we found out what.  This team had been tagged by a another team team tying a road-killed opossum to their bumper with some string or rope or something.

Hands down, it was the best prank we saw of the weekend (I’m laughing about it now, honest!), but the worst time for me to come across it.  I ended up dry-heaving for a few minutes in a porta-potty.  No, it’s worse than that image you have in your head.

Oddly enough, after that, I slowly started to feel better.  Our team morale hadn’t really been phased by so many sick people.  We were still cheering each other on.  We were still running just as fast as when we started if not faster.  We all started feeling better.  The sun is coming up.  We’re in Houston.  We’re on the second day.  We’re on the finish day.  We’re going to finish.  We’re going to finish well in the standings!

Belinda hands to Dustin; leg 30 done.  Dustin hands to Brandon; 31 done.  Steph then Amber then Tony.  We’re downtown now.  Dustin takes off on leg 36, his last leg of the weekend.  So about Dustin.

Dustin was a big unknown to everyone on the team at the start.  Brandon knew him from their gym, but the rest of us didn’t.  Dustin turned out to be a super-nice guy that fit in just perfectly with the rest of us.  We were stoked to have such a nice guy with us.  The fact that he was a good runner was a bonus.  By the time this was all said and done, Dustin had actually run the highest individual mileage of anyone on the team.  This takes me back to his last leg.

Dustin took off just like he had on his previous three legs.  He looked strong and was moving along really well.  I was the next runner so my van took off to the next exchange while the second van stayed near him through a less-than-favorable neighborhood.  With about a mile to go, the second van went ahead to the exchange too.  I mean, it’s just a mile to go, right?  That mile took a lot longer than it should have and we were worrying about Dustin.  Was he okay?  Did something happen to him?  He finally popped around the corner to finish the leg, but he was moving slower than he had earlier.  In my mind I’m thinking, “Okay he bonked.  I’m probably going to do the same thing right now.  I hope I can finish as strongly as he is after that.”  He hands off to me and I take off on my last leg not giving his finish a second thought.

Come to found out after my final leg, Dustin was running so hard on his last leg that he literally blacked out while running.  He didn’t fall or anything, but everything went dark.  He said he sat down, caught his breath, his vision returned, and he got up and kept going.  <Blink> What?  Dustin did what!?  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing until I heard it directly from him myself.  Here’s a guy that doesn’t know any of us.  We met him for the first time at the starting line of the Prologue.  He just literally ran out of his mind for the team.  Our last few runners ran inspired.

We finished at the San Jacinto monument shortly before noon on Sunday.  Our total official time was 27:34:18 or an 8:09/mile pace.  That’s a full minute faster over 203.2 miles than we expected to run.  We were the #6 team to cross the finish line.  We finished #36 overall out of 129 competitive teams (144 total counting non-competitive).  When I said I thought we were moving faster in the city, I was right.  Our last 17 legs averaged 4 seconds faster per mile than our first 23.  Only one other team on the first page of finishers did that.

Every single person on our team averaged a faster pace across every leg than they had over the past month or so.  As Brandon put it, “I don’t think we left 0:01 out on the course.  Kinda hard to imagine a 8:09 min/mile pace for 203 miles but its because everyone gave 100 percent except Dustin who decided to give 110 and black out.”  I still laugh at that

I’m not only proud of what I did as an individual, but I’m proud of what my team accomplished together.  We ran as a group for nearly 28 hours.  There wasn’t any complaining.  There wasn’t any bickering.  It was just running.  Everyone running to accomplish a common goal.  This isn’t something that runners get to experience too often.  We train with other people all the time, but when a race comes around, it’s every (wo)man for himself.  This was really a unique and unbelievable experience that I know none of us will ever forget.

This is admittedly a little cheesy, but I want to thank everyone individually:

Tony – Thanks for the leadership.  We needed it!

Steph – Thanks for the “sibling” rivalry.

Andrew – Thanks for putting up with us calling you Andy-drew all weekend.

Belinda – Thanks for getting me through the sickness.

Dan – Thanks for the blue shorts.  Do I know you?!

Karen – Thanks for the cheerleading.  Wicked Haahd Coraah!!

Brandon – Thanks for not eating the pizza; at least one of us kept our senses.

Amber – Thanks for putting up with all of us old people.

Dustin – Last, but never least.  Thanks for going all out for a bunch of strangers.

Guys, it was a total blast and I absolutely cannot wait to do it again next year!  See you out on the road.

©2012 Jeff Mery. All Rights Reserved.

Dropbox (www.dropbox.com):  Cross-platform, cloud-based file synchronization

What It Is – Dropbox lets you keep whatever you want synchronized between multiple systems.  It doesn’t matter what systems they are either as Dropbox supports Mac, Windows, and Linux as well as mobile devices (iPhone native; Android & Blackberry via browser).  I use the free version which provides 2GB of online storage.  The paid versions get you more storage, but the functionality is the same.

Why I Care – I have certain sets of files that I want to be the same across all systems.  I also want these files to be backed up and secure in the event that “something” happens.  Dropbox lets me do this without any effort.  It also gives me an easy way to get files from one computer to another without resorting to e-mail or FTP.  I just put the files in the special Dropbox folder on my machine and the files will be available everywhere I install the client.

Evernote (www.evernote.com):  Cross-platform, cloud-based note taking tool

What It Is – Evernote is note taking software.  I don’t think it’s as good as OneNote from Microsoft, but it’s pretty darn close.  Evernote is, as I’ve noted, cross-platform and cloud-based.  This lets me run it on Mac and Windows (sorry, no Linux that I’m aware of).  It also runs on several different mobile platforms (currently iPhone, Android, and Blackberry).  Evernote syncs your notes to their servers.  Anything sync’d is then available anywhere you can run the Evernote client.  Think of it as Dropbox, but just for notes.  Here again, I use the free version which allows for 40MB of uploads per month (remember, this is mostly text so that’s a ton of space).  The paid version gets you 500MB of storage per month as well as additional features (more attachment types allowed, priority image recognition, no adds, etc).

Why I Care – I was hooked on OneNote in Windows.  Hands-down, I feel it’s the best note taking software out there.  My problem is that it doesn’t run on the Mac.  Now that my MacBook pro is my primary machine, I really needed to find a suitable replacement.  I’m still learning all the tricks here, but Evernote is definitely a strong product.  I like that I can get my notes just using my iPhone.  This keeps them handy when I either don’t have the laptop or I don’t want to fire it up.  I can also take notes on the iPhone and they’ll sync up.  I find this particularly useful for grabbing those flash ideas or the random to-do’s that pop into my head.

Mozy (www.mozy.com):  Cross-platform, cloud-based backups

What It Is – Mozy is a cloud-based backup service.  It takes files on you computer and automatically makes backup copies on the Mozy.com servers.  30-days worth of backups are kept.  If you need to restore one or all of your files, it can be done via a web browser from any PC with the Mozy software.  There are several editions supporting both the PC and Mac platforms.  The free one gives 2GB of storage for backups.  The personal paid version gives unlimited(!) online storage for $4.95 per month.  There’s also MozyPro for corporations or server-class operating systems, but I don’t use those so I won’t go into them.

Why I Care – Everything we do these days is digital:  music, photos, communication, finance, etc.  Much of this is irreplaceable if a disaster happens.  I’d hate to lose so much because a $75 hard drive gives up the ghost.  Then there’s Wendy working out of the house.  I don’t want to think about her losing another person’s family photos.  Mozy takes care of backing everything up for us off-site, automatically without us having to do it.

VirtualBox (www.virtualbox.org):  Cross-platform OS virtualization tool

What It Is – VirtualBox is an open-source OS virtualization tool.  This is a competitor to software like VMware Workstation, VMware Fusion, and Parallels.  This lets me run one OS within another without having to reboot (which tools like BootCamp would require me to do).

Why I Care – First, I like to play around with other operating systems.  VirtualBox lets me do this without having extra hardware on hand.  All I really need is some disk space.  Everything else can be done in software; I don’t even have to have a physical OS install CD, an ISO image will do.  Second, no matter how much I want it, there are going to be applications that I just can run on my Mac (most notably Project and Visio from Microsoft).  I can run these over Citrix without any issues, but if I’m not able to VPN in to work, I can just fire up a Windows virtual machine and I’m good to go.

Of all these tools, I consider Mozy.com a must-have.  With pretty much everything done on the computer these days, there’s just too much for us to lose.

I think both Dropbox and Evernote are great tools for even the average user.  If you have multiple devices where you’d like to have the same information, they’re great.  Remember, I said “devices” and not “computers”.  These both work with the major mobile platforms so smart-phone users should definitely take note.

VirtualBox is really for computer enthusiasts or IT people.  I used VMware Workstation for years on the PC and it was pretty good.  It’s got (or had) some features that VirtualBox didn’t such as nested guest snapshots.  For the most part, though, I think they’re interchangeable.  The areas where VirtualBox has an advantage are price and performance.  VirtualBox is free for personal use on the Enterprise version and totally free for the open source edition (but you have to compile it yourself).  Performance wise, VirtualBox has always felt snappier than VMware workstation has.  I’ve never taken the time to quantify that, but it’s certainly the seat-of-the-pants feel.

That’s about it.  As I find more cool things, I’ll post ‘em.

©2012 Jeff Mery. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve been using Windows for a looooong time now.  I really started back in school; maybe 1995 with my first “multi-media” PC and Windows 95.  It was an amazing leap from Windows 3.11.  I had been hooked on Windows ever since.  This is especially true given my career choice of IT Infrastructure.  My job in college was centered around IT support for quite a few SMBs in the Lubbock area.

We did everything from end-user support to server upgrades.  Novell Netware was the big thing at the time with a lot of time spent doing Netware 3.1 to 4.11 upgrades.  The whole NT 4.0 thing, we felt, was just a fad.  Once Microsoft really understood and implemented an LDAP compliant OS with Windows 2000, we were chomping at the bit to get rid of all the Netware we could.

This entire time was pretty much the dark ages for the Mac.  No one used them and no one cared.  When the iPod dropped that all changed.  I resisted.  Having graduated, I moved into a true enterprise IT shop.  After a year or so I ended up concentrating on our NAS storage infrastructure.  Frankly, the Mac was a huge pain in my ass.  LDAP? Nope.  SMB?  Nope.  Third-party painful software to do what just worked in Windows? Yep.

It’s no fault against the 3rd-party software guys.  It didn’t work great, but at least it allowed the Mac clients in the office to attach to our enterprise NAS.  These days, things are quite a bit different.

Windows 7 is pretty sweet.  I honestly love it and thing it’s the best OS that Microsoft has ever come out with overall.  The problem with the PC is not the OS these days; it’s the hardware.  Take the average business laptop from any major enterprise supplier like Dell, IBM, HP.  They’re really all pretty much identical.  There’s a severe lack of innovation and engineering.

As an example – my most recent company system from an unnamed supplier had an inherent design flaw related to cooling.  Basically, the system was guaranteed to fail.  The exhaust would clog with your everyday dust and the graphics chip was sure to fail.  This happened to me and countless others where I work.  My personal laptop had the motherboard and CPU fry.  After replacement, it was never really the same system.  I think this does a huge disservice to Microsoft.

Say what you will about their business practices, but their OS and the integration between their products is second to none.  If they had a decent hardware platform to implement what I consider to be the best OS around, there wouldn’t be any debate about what to run.  Unfortunately, this will likely never happen thanks to the various government entities.

The Mac, on the other hand, is okay as an OS.  It does most of what Windows 7 does and it does a lot of things better.  I think where Apple has a distinct advantage over Microsoft is in the hardware department.  Apple hardware is just freakin’ sweet.

Take the trackpad for instance.  I’ve had my Mac barely a week and I can’t figure out how I lived without the MacBook Pro trackpad before this.  The ability to navigate and move around the OS with the trackpad the way you can on the Mac is awesome.

Another example is the cooling on the MacBook Pro.  On 99% of the Windows laptops out there, air is taken in from the bottom of the system, moved across some sort of heat sink or heat pipe and pushed out the back.  The problem with this is that the intake on the bottom of the system basically turns your CPU fan into a vacuum cleaner for whatever dust and crap is on your work surface.  The Mac has a completely different design that eliminates this as a point of failure.

Don’t get me wrong, the Mac isn’t perfect.  The lack of a docking or port replicating option is really a pain for those of us in the enterprise.  I have to connect 4 different cables when at my desk to do what a single docking station did in the Windows world.  There’s also a lack of compatible enterprise software for things like Microsoft Project and Visio which I use nearly daily.

In my opinion, the Mac isn’t “better”, it’s just different.  There are things that I really like about it and things that drive me insane.  However, hardware reliability goes a loooong way to making me a happy user.  It’s only been a week, but so far I really like what I’ve seen.  I’ll keep you all posted…

©2012 Jeff Mery. All Rights Reserved.

I think the main reason is that I fully expected to run the full again this year.  I trained for it.  Mentally, it’s what I wanted to do.  The foot injury in December just killed the possibility and I never really adjusted my expectations.  It’s not like I showed up, started the full, and then bailed at the split.  I never intended to run the full that day; I started knowing that I would run the half.  It’s hard to describe, but it just feels like a little bit of a let down.

I actually had a decent run with all things considered.  After the month off from the foot, my longest run was on y 7 miles.  Sunday, I had an awesome first 8 miles.  I had the pleasure of running with Mark K.; a running buddy that I hadn’t run with since San Antonio.  He’s a lot stronger than I am, and it felt like having my own personal pacer .  Mark helped me go out nice and slow for the first 3.5 miles.  Those are uphill the entire way.

Once we hit 3.5, it’s downhill through mile 7.  We absolutely flew through that section and it didn’t even really phase me.  Mile 8 was so-so just because of the hill going up Veterans Drive.  It’s short, but really steep.  That took a lot out of me and the doubts began to creep in about finishing the run strong.  Mile 9 was what I’d call average.  At mile 10, I bonked.

Coming up to the 10-mile marker, the course turns off Lake Austin Blvd and onto Enfield.  Literally at that turn, the hills start and they just don’t let up.  All things considered, it’s no surprise that this is where I fell apart.  With a long run of only 7 miles and no real hill training to speak of, I should have expected.  It was still a letdown when it happened.

I walked off and on the rest of the way in.  Mainly walking up the hills and running down the backs of them.  Once we got close to the capitol building I was at least able to run the rest of the way in.  My official time was a 2:15:48.  That’s about 5 minutes faster than San Antonio, but 15 minutes slower than my PR of 2:00:05.  That’s another point of angst when I run the half-marathon distance.  I set that PR on my very first race of any kind ever.  I haven’t sniffed it in an official race of that distance since then.  It always just rubs me the wrong way.

The day wasn’t all bad though.  Just about everyone I ran with set a PR for their marathon distance which is totally awesome.  I also had a friend (Hi, K.C.!) that finished her first half-marathon.  She didn’t really train for it like she wanted to, but still got through it to the end.  The Austin Half course is really hilly and it’s a pretty big accomplishment to get through it like she did.

The next big thing for me will be the Texas Independence Relay on March 6-7.  There will be 10 of us running from Gonzales, TX to the San Jacinto Monument in Houston which is about 203 miles.  We start on Saturday and run non-stop until we finish sometime Sunday.  It’s going to be a lot of fun and we can’t wait to do it.

After TIR I’m really going to concentrate on dropping some weight over the summer.  I’m at 239 pounds right now.  At 6′ 2″ that puts me about 40-45 pounds overweight.  My goal right now is to drop 20 pounds by the time we start running again in August.  If I’m making good progress by July, I’m going to sign up to run the Houston Marathon in January 2011.  I’ll train for Austin, but I’m not sure I’ll make it since it’s just 2 weeks after Houston.  Only time will tell, but at this point I’m really dedicated to dropping it.

I can’t wait to start running again later this week!

©2012 Jeff Mery. All Rights Reserved.

Me:  “No.  I didn’t.  But thanks for asking.”

Maybe I should try to get to bed a little earlier…

©2012 Jeff Mery. All Rights Reserved.

Training for the marathon has been really tough this year.  On a normal training run after our 15 miler, my foot started hurting right where I broke it in February last year.  I went to the doctor and she thought it was broken again but wasn’t 100% sure.  She ordered an MRI, and said no running for 3 weeks.  While my foot hurt, it turns out that it wasn’t broken.  The doc’s feeling wast that it was very close to breaking again, but I stopped just short of that.

It’s obviously a good thing that it didn’t break, but I lost three weeks of training in the middle of the season.  When I finally got cleared to run again, I got sick and lost another week.  4 weeks is just too much to make up 2 months out from the marathon.  This year I won’t be doing the full, just the half.  I’m bummed about it, but there’s really no other choice unless I want to do a lot of walking.  That’s just not my style.

The good news is that I found a follow up run a few weeks later.  A group of 10 of us are going to do the Texas Independence Relay from Gonzales, TX to the San Jacinto Memorial in Houston.  That’s 203 total miles in 2 days!  We’ve got vans rented and everything and are pumped.  Just about everyone on the team is from my marathon training group so it’s going to be a blast.

I’ve got lots of other stuff to talk about and will be updating more frequently now.  Until next time…

©2012 Jeff Mery. All Rights Reserved.

I’d never call a hill workout easy, but last week it felt manageable.  I was definitely gassed towards the end, but never felt like I was going to die like every single week before this one.  The Thursday tempo run was good too.  I wasn’t particularly faster or anything but again, my legs felt much better afterward than they normally have.

The real kicker was our 10 miler on Saturday.  I stuck to my plan of making sure I finished with negative splits.  With the exception of an unexpected hill in the middle (new route last weekend) it went really well.  Over the last 5k, I had plenty of gas in the tank for a strong finish.  Most people say, “I want to be below ‘X’ pace on this run”.  I take a different approach in that I don’t want to be faster than ‘X’ on a given run.  This keeps me from jackrabbit starts.  It also keeps me from getting too ahead of myself when I feel strong on a run.

Because of this reverse emphasis on pace, I don’t put too much stock into my overall pace.  If I take care of business by following my plan and executing the weekly runs the right way, the overall pace per mile will take care of itself.  The 10 miler on Saturday was the first run I’ve had where it finally came together.  I’ve been averaging between 9:50 and 10:15 per mile for all of the long runs up to this point.  This weekend, I ran a 9:33 over the longest run of the season.  I’m pretty happy with that!

This week is our last week of hills before track workouts start.  Hopefully I can get more benefit out of them this year than I did last year.

©2012 Jeff Mery. All Rights Reserved.

You might do hills to work on strength, or track work to improve speed.  One thing I have constantly struggled with is the easiest of them all – the easy run.  I know, ridiculous right?  The ‘easy’ run is the hardest one?  Here’s why…

I’m a competitive person.  It’s that simple.   Let’s say I’m supposed to do an easy 4 miles to recover from the weekly long run.  My problem is that I fixate on my fastest 4 mile time and think I have to run it in that time or less every single time I do 4 miles.  The distance doesn’t really matter.  I’m just obsessed with competing with my own times.

I even do it on my long runs.  This year I’m slower.  It happens when you slack all summer and eat too much.  The problem is that I’m still trying to run a 9-minute pace for 10 miles when I can’t even sniff that right now.

Tonight, I was finally able to complete an honest-to-God easy run just the way I’m supposed to.  I don’t think I’ve ever done one properly.  It’s not that I haven’t tried, but when I run easy for the first few miles I feel like I have to speed up on the last few.  My legs feel great right now.  They feel like they haven’t done anything and I could go out for a 10 miler and not think twice about it.  I’m interested in how things go tomorrow in the hill workout  .

©2012 Jeff Mery. All Rights Reserved.

A lot has been going on over the last few weeks, especially around my workouts.  In August, I joined the running group I was with last year and started training for my second marathon.  So far things are going exactly like they did last year, almost to the day.

We’re up to 10 mile long runs now.  The training starts with 3 miles as the long run and works up one mile a week.  I’m still slower than last year but am slowly improving.  My weight has come down about 10 pounds since August so my pace has steadily increased.  The weather has finally cooled off too which has helped out tremendously.  50-degree runs are a lot easier than 80-degree runs.

With the increased mileage comes injuries too.  The IT band problem I had last year is back again this year.  It came back at the same weekly mileage as last year too.  The guys at Therapy Central worked on me before our 9 miler and I had a good run.  On this weekend’s 10 miler it acted up again though around mile 8 so I stopped there.  It wasn’t really too bad, but I don’t want to take any chances.

I think the flare up this weekend was because of the condition of Brushy Creek Trail.  There was a lot of flooding out there which left parts of the trail in rough shape.  There were a lot more soft spots than normal which always bothers me.  But I think the biggest thing was all the ruts from water runoff.  Dancing around those, especially on the part of the trail we call the “lollipop”, combined with the soft and uneven footing really aggravated things.

Things feel okay today with a little tenderness.  I’ll be going extra easy for tomorrow’s run and will be sure to stretch well when done all week this week.  That’s really the only thing that helps out in the long term.

One thing I’m doing differently this year is I’ve signed up for an intermediary race.  Last year, I didn’t do anything except the marathon which made me start to burn out by the end of training.  So far, I’ve done the Silicon Relay.  Next up is the San Antonio Half in November.  Depending on when our house is finished, I may do the White Rock Half in December too.

Till next time…

©2012 Jeff Mery. All Rights Reserved.