No Quiero Taco Bell

Last night was terrible. I must have ate something that disagreed with me because I had some stomach problems that kept me up all night. Literally. I did not get to sleep until around 5am. I stayed home from work today so I could rest. I am feeling better now. Work tomorrow should not be a problem.

The Road Less Travelled or 6+10

Beth and I went to see "Run Fat Boy Run" last night. It wasn't the best movie, but it had its moments. Runners will find something with which to connect. I enjoyed it even though I was expecting something along the lines of "Shawn of the Dead" or "Hot Fuzz" two movies that I love.
This morning I was so close to bailing on my run. I just didn't feel like going. I logged onto Peak.com and that inspired me to get out there and run. Since the St Louis Marathon is coming up Sunday I planned on heading out to the Nature Trail to do my normal 10k out and back route. I can't quite explain what happens to me when I get out on the trail. I ended up running between 14-16 miles depending on which map you believe. I came to the turn around and decided to keep on going, figuring that I would run on to the four mile mark and then turn around, but instead of turning right onto the Bluff Trail I kept going on the Nature Trail at that point I really wasn't sure how far I would go. I decided to run for an hour and turn around. I made it all the way to I255. The whole run lasted 2hours and 5 minutes. It made me happy to have such a good run, I feel like I will do well next week at the marathon.

Albert PrintWorks

The family and I have started a business. We are doing some screen printing out of our basement. So far we have done t-shirts, tote bags and lunch bags. Everything so far has gone pretty smoothly over all. We are still novices at this type of endeavor, and there have been setbacks as well as a few rough spots, but nothing we haven't been able to overcome. I think for being new to this business the quality of our work is very good. I'll post some pictures of the things we have printed. I have always wanted to learn how to screen print so we bought a small starter kit and played around with that for a while. Now we have a six color two station press. We haven't had any orders for multiple colors yet so that is something to which I look forward. I would like to make multi-colored shirts for the family to wear at the St Louis Marathon just to advertise the business a little bit, but I don't think I will have time. I think time is the only place this business hurts us. Since we don't have all of the fancy equipment everything takes a little bit longer than it should, and when you multiply that by say 100 shirts it really adds up. So for right now we are reinvesting the money that we make back into the business so we can buy better equipment. The plan is to retire at 57 and have this business to supplement my pension. I know I won't be able to retire and kick my feet up for the rest of my life so I figure why not start a business and create my own schedule so I can be free to do the things I want to do. So I guess we'll see how it goes. We have 20 years to make this business a success.
NAMASTE...

Holding me back...

I have this video on Myspace, so you may have already seen it, but it really hits home for me. I feel exactly like this at times, and I cannot wait until I am done with me.

Inaugural Blog

It is less than two weeks until the St Louis Marathon. I have not really been training for it much. I will admit that since the weather started getting a little nicer I have been running more but outside of the "Frost Bite Series" I really didn't run over the winter. Next year all of that is going to change because of the goals I have set for myself.
Most people think I am crazy for wanting to run 100+ miles, but to me it seems crazy that people don't want to. Therein lies the dilemma I don't know if it is me or everyone else. A crazy person should not be aware of his own psychosis, right? So if in fact I were crazy I would be unaware of that fact, and given my current state it is entirely possible that I am officially "Tom Cruise" Crazy. But I digress.
A couple years ago I was watching laying around on a Saturday or Sunday watching tv, and I happened to stop on a show about "Badwater". I think Scott Jurek won in under 24 hours. He was running covered from head to toe in white to ward off the heat. The announcer said that the runners try to stay on the white lines painted on the side of the road because otherwise their shoes would melt. I never knew races like this existed. I was enthralled. I said to myself, "I must do this." Not necessarily Badwater, but I must run 100 miles.
Running is nothing knew for me, I was in the army for eight years. We ran about four miles every day, and while I was in the army I ran in several 5k, and 10k races. However the farthest I had ever ran back then was 13k. I remember, and it is funny to have such a vivid memory of something so opposite of where I am now, when I was in Germany a group of people from the unit decided that they were going to go to Berlin and run the Berlin half marathon, I can remember thinking that they must've had a few screws loose to want to run 13.1 miles. Now I look back and kick myself for not seizing probably the only chance I will get to put the Berlin Half on my resume.
On May 17th I will be running my very first Ultra marathon the Berryman 50mile trail run. I am super excited about it, and I cannot wait for it to get here so that I may properly begin my journey into Ultra running. I hope to finish in the neighborhood of 10 hours, which is probably not a reasonable time given my current level of preparedness. I plan to give it everything I have.
It seems like this area is going through a Golden Age of sorts or at the very least a Renaissance of Ultra Running, so I think now is the time to get involved in this sport. There are so many more resources available now than when I first started researching this sport. Without these resources I wouldn't know about little things like losing toe nails, salt pills, and eating while running. So thanks to everyone who ever gave me advice or posted a valuable lesson on a message board so that others would not have to learn the hard way.
That is all I have time for today, since I have to go to work.
NAMASTE...