Category Archives: sports and leisure

2008 Run for Their Health 5K

On April 12, I participated in the Run for Their Health 5K in Schenley Park. Formerly called the Run With HAART, this race is hosted by Pitt medical school students and benefits Kenyan children with HIV/AIDS.

As in Just a Short Run Half Marathon, I wasn’t was well-trained or properly prepared for this race. I finished in a slow 27:25 (8:51 pace). Pictures can be found here.

2008 Just a Short Run Half Marathon

On Saturday, I ran my fourth half marathon at the 8th annual Just a Short Run. It was definitely my worst. I’m not too disappointed, though, considering I didn’t really train for it. BTW, that was a bad idea; don’t emulate me. Anyhow, I finished without walking (not counting water stops) in 2:19:50. I’m still hopeful that I can finish the Ikea half marathon in less than two hours. I’ll definitely train for that, though. 😉

2006 South Mountain 10-Miler

Not to be outdone by Funky, nor to waste an opportunity for shameless electronic scrapbooking, if not self-promotion, I thought I’d mention that I completed Lehigh Valley Roadrunners’ South Mountain 10 Miler near Bethlehem PA this morning in a pretty good time: 82:32 (by my watch). The reason it’s called the South Mountain 10 Miler is… well… apparently… you basically run up a mountain (“South Mountain”??), approximately 550 ft rise over 1.5 miles, and then back again. So only about 4 of the 10 miles could be considered anywhere near flat. My splits pretty much tell the story:

mile 1: 8:08
mile 2: 8:13 — very slight uphill
mile 3: 8:17 — major climb begins around mi. 2.5
mile 4: 10:34 — all uphill, about 9% grade!!
mile 5: 8:29 — up… and down… and up
mile 6: 8:07 — down… and up… and down
mile 7: 6:29 — mile 4 going the other way
mile 8: 7:38 — mile 3 going the other way
mile 9: 8:26 — mile 2 going the other way
mile 10: 8:11 — mile 1 going the other way
TOTAL: 82:32

Now I am an inveterate 10 mile runner (this was my 7th over the past 4+ years), and the story behind this race begins with the fact that less than two months ago I ran a PW (personal worst) in the Virginia 10 Miler, Lynchburg VA, (92:38). This was after expecting to do at least (at most depending on how you look at such things) an 84:00. My PR was 82:09 run in September 2004. I laid my failure on dehydration, most likely caused by having too much to drink (3 drinks, not too many for a Catholic) the night before. I didn’t pee for almost 5 hours after that race, even after multiple liters of water and Gatorade.

So the race in Bethlehem was my redemption race. And given the fact that the South Mountain race is more challenging than the Lynchburg race, which ends with a mere 200 foot climb, I’d say that I’ve set a new personal best. The secrets to success were two platefuls of spaghetti-n-marina Sat. night, no meat, no bread, and no wine (darn), a Jersey Boy Bagel Shop salt-encrusted bagel 45 min. before race time, and a 20 oz. Gatorade gulped down about 3 min before race time. My friend and colleague, Allan Zheng, who ran with me for about 4 miles, also ate a salt bagel and had a great time, too. (NB: Jersey Boy bagels is locally owned and operated so if you don’t live near Morristown NJ, you may be outa luck!) And I was of course helped by the intercession of saints, present and future. Thanks for my wife and kids praying for me during mass (10 AM was right about when I needed their prayers), to St. Sebastian, Patron of Athletes (loosely construed in my case), to our Blessed Mother, and thanks be to God.

Update: Official results (pdf) are in.

Pittsburgh TV News Rant

Pittsburgh TV news reporting sucks.

Why are Pittsburghers are so bloody obsessed with weather? Between that and sports there’s barely any real news reported. I really don’t give a flying fig about Super Mega Kickass Vibromatic Storm Chaser 6000 and how it can slice and dice and make julean fries. Just give me a simple 5-day forecast and a little detail about tomorrow and shut the hell up!

As for sports, I enjoyed watching the Steelers beat the Seahags in the Superbowl and all, but can the celebration please stop? Then there’s the plight of the Penguins. I’m getting really sick of all the speculation. Leave the issue alone until something newsworthy happens, like the team moving to another city or Pittsburgh spending millions of dollars it doesn’t have on a new arena. Lastly, if I have to hear the sob story of Pitt’s early loss in the NCAA tournament one more time, I might go postal. They lost. Get over it and move on.

After you’ve suffered through a half hour of weather and sports, what kind of news gets reported? We hear about 5 minutes of sound bites about important world events (Iraq war, genocide in Sudan, etc.) and the remainder is local interest crap. Reporting local news is fine in moderation, but one can only watch footage of a broken down PAT bus for so long.

I shouldn’t have to watch PBS (Zzzzz) or be lucky enough to get BBC America in order to get decent national and international news. Before you say it, I get neither CNN nor Fox News, nor do I care to. If I want biased news, I’ll stick to reading blogs.

*grumble*