Wow! What a Bunch of Crap!

Yes, yes, it's been "some time" since I've posted.

Thanks for sitting here patiently refreshing your screen in eager anticipation of my next post.

I suddenly feel like Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin rolled into one.

The upshot here is that Lil and I, while we were in Idaho for the 4th of July vacation we took, decided to really roll up our sleeves and hire some folk to make some rennovations to our home. Initially, it seemed like both a good idea and a necessary step forward.

Turns out it was neither.

It was just a necessary evil that became, with slow inexorbility, the most stress inducing chaos of my young life.

Three projects. Three simple projects and our lives were turned completely upside down:

Renovate Porter's closet
Replace the carpeting
Repair the kitchen ceiling

For the first, you should understand that our house was built in 1922. I love old houses. I'm a big fan of their construction techniques, the overall feel of a house that has stood many times longer that I have, and in general just how maleable they are. Unfortunately, in 1922, they didn't believe in closets or closet space the way we currently think of it. Pretty much a closet for 1922 was a door with a 2' x 2' room inside. Enough room to hang your school clothes and your Sunday best. The upshot of Porter's room was that his closet made an immediate left hand turn and kept going for about five feet. We just needed to knock out that wall, and we could hang sliding doors or whatever and suddenly we have a functional closet!

Replacing the carpeting in the house seemed like a good idea as well, especially when we decided to lay laminate flooring in the front room and the dining room, visually tying these two rooms together. The downside of this little adventure was that everything, and I mean everything, that we have collected over the past six years had to be moved off the floor. The heavy furniture, the light furniture, the little treasures we left sitting out and never dusted. All of that.

The kitchen ceiling wasn't our fault. It came that way, and there was nothing for it. We've been meaning to paint the entire kitchen at some point (you know . . . the "future"), and this seemed like a good time to take care of that. However, everything that we've been storing on the kitchen counter-tops had to disappear because paint in 1922 was filled with lead. Also, dust makes me sneeze.

But being the smart people we are, we decided to do EVERYTHING at the same time, which required, in simple terms, moving out of the house.

Yeah, it's been that kind of a week.

Seeing all our stuff out of the house makes the house look GREAT! But it is simply mind-boggling to think of how much "stuff" and "junk" and "someday-we-might-use-this" that we have collected (and never dusted) over the years. If everything on the back porch were to somehow disappear, I'm faily certain I would only miss my DVDs.

And then I would hunt that person down with a fiery vengence the likes of which ten suns could no match.

But yeah, other than that, I wouldn't mind it all just disappearing.

So, anyone want some "stuff"?

Better Than Last Year - Fontana Days Race

Fontana Days Race Like the Wind was fairly good this year. I only blistered my left foot instead of both feet. My calves, on the other hand, are screaming about the lack of training I put in for this race. Apparently, sitting on the couch, watching re-runs of Andromeda and eating chips and Tostitos Salsa con Queso is not an Olympic training regimen.

Still, I performed better than I did last year:

Overall - 97th

Time - 21:42

Division* - 7th

Splits - 7:00/mile

This year:

Overall – 76^th

Time – 21:37

Division – 5^th

Splits – 6:59/mile

Daylight Saving Time

Epic Fail.

Riverside Raincross 5k

Here it is, baby! The 2009 Riverside Raincross 5k results.

The race, once again, started fast. There was a group of youngsters who were quite disturbed the first time they tried to cut me off and I boomed out, "Watch where you're running." They quickly fell back and I never saw them again. I can only guess they are still out there, huddled together for fear of me.

It happens.

I cleaned the first mile in 6:10-ish. I don't know the exact time, I was running. Don't judge me.

Yeah, that was way, way, way too fast.

So, being the expert runner that I am (i.e. too tired to continue at that pace), I dropped the next mile down to 8:30-ish. This is the mile where they throw that really big, suicide hill in your way and then laugh. Oh, they laugh. Don't tell me they don't.

I've been training on hills so I was ok on it, but we lost many a good runner there, kicking and cursing their treadmills, while screaming for Hermes to deliver them.

Hermes also laughed.

After that, the race lets you coast downhill through the third mile, until about 500 yards from the finish, when, just for repeat giggles, they throw that second hill in your path. You can almost see the race organizers' evil grin as they placed the Mile 3 marker right at the foot of this last hill.

Ooo, those bad, bad organizers, with their black cloak and their twirled mustacheos!

I maintained a sub-8ish mile pace (STOP JUDGING ME) through this, and powered the hill. I thought I was going to pass one more runner, but his shapely hips and thighs managed a final burst of youthful speed and he managed a two second margin. I had no kick whatsoever to answer with, and really didn't care. Contrary to popular belief, I'm more interested in competition in my division, than giving some 15-year old the heave-ho at the end of a long struggle.

Shut up, it's true because it's on my blog.

Here's the reward:

Time: 22:16
Overall: 45th of 449
Division (35-39): 3rd (medal me baby!)

Now, what's interesting about this is last year, I managed 2nd in my age division (30-34) with a worse time. So, either the older competition is getting stiffer (and with viagra readily available, who can't imagine that) or . . . I don't know. Essentially, the older competition was just faster.

If you feel the need of reliving them, here are the links to the past two races. It goes like this:

2007 Time: 24:14
2008 Time: 23:52

Insult to Injury

Last weekend was the Ontario Mills 5k/10k. This normally would have been my weekend to run the Diamond Valley Lake, but the Ontario Mills was a closer race, and since I’m trying to be all green and stuff, as well as bring my wife and son along as cheering section, I figured I’d give it a go.

Mistake.

We arrived a goof 30 minutes ahead of time because I’m anal retentive and paranoid.

Hey, go with what you’re good at.

There were two lines in front of the registration table, and no one seemed to know which line was for which, so I just got in the shorter line.

Mistake.

About ten people from the front, I was told that I was in the late-registration line. I don’t register late because, as mentioned above I’m anal retentive and paranoid. Also, registering the same day costs more.

I’m tight-fisted to boot.

But I’ve been running races for a couple years now, and I know that the registration table folks are somewhat accommodating. At worst, they would just ask me to step to the side, sign one of the proper table workers to my request and I’d be on my way.

Mistake.

Two people ahead of me, they announce that they have “run out of numbers”, and they will only be handling the pre-registered people now. I realize listening to the girls immediately in front of me that they, likewise, have already registered. I take action:

“Just step to the middle, they’ll help us out.”

The girls did, and I got the attention of a worker, who actually did help us out. But I now realized what one of the main problems with the registration desk was. They had six people at the desk, but no one was assigned a particular group, and so lists were being passed back and forth, and frustrations were rising, meanwhile late registrants were being handled one at a time, instead of told to fill out their registration and then come back for their number.

The term “fubar” begins to apply.

My turn comes up, as I check the time, and note there is only 5 minutes to race start.

“Sorry, we’re out of shirts, so we’ll have to mail you one.”

Right. No worries. What do I care? I’m not really here for the shirt. I race for the thrill of competition. I’ve never proudly pulled out a race-day t-shirt to reflect that I am a runner, and compete against other runners in official running-day events for which I pay way too much money and only receive this t-shirt in lieu of glory.

Never.

So I get my bib number, and I’m pinning it on, when we’re all informed that the race start is actually ¾ of a mile away from the registration table. Alright, no worries. I’m an athlete, I can hack walking that distance, except that it’s 5 minutes from the start.

Fortunately, the race organizers had thought of this, and given their incompetence, decided to start the race 30 minutes late. Did I mention the race was around a mall? Did I further mention that the mall started opening at 8:00 am, which is when the race was now set to go off? Did I even further mention that we were running on the road where cars would be driving to get to the mall?

Well, enough of that. The race goes off, and it’s a very flat course, so I’m at my cruising speed, and I run a pretty decent race. I even manage to hear the times as I cross what passed for a finish line (they used the crosswalk along the road, with no other sign that that was the finish). My time was about 21:32, which is more than great. It's Grrrr-eeeaatt! It's freaking fantastic. It's a new PR for me.

All that training and pain (not to mention the steroids and cheetah-gene injections) are actually starting to pay off!

Thus, imagine my surprise, chagrin and eventual rage when I checked the official rankings. Not only am I at the bottom of the pack, but my time is almost exactly double what it was when I crossed the line.

So, the Official information is:

Overall – 74th of 88
Time – 43:01
Age Division – N/A (they didn’t break it out by age)

Not only can't they run a race, they can't even write down a bib number and a time correctly. Needless to say, I will not be returning to the Ontario Mills 5k/10k next year. Diamond Lake will have me back with bells on!

Oh, and Unofficially:

Overall – 19th of 88
Time – 21:32 (New PR)