When in Denver do as they do

So after traveling to Taiwan all last week I came home in time to have a nice relaxing 13-14 mile run on Sunday, spend time with the family, and then fly out to Denver yesterday. So the question is when in Denver do as the locals do right? So I hit THE ORIGINAL CHIPOTLE. It was the trip to mecca that every true Chipotle lover must make in their life correct. In case anyone is interested here is where it all started.

This is why I run... 2+lb 2000+calorie burritos made from the best of ingrediants.

Most difficult blog ever

So it has taken me a few minutes to figure out how to log in and begin writing this blog. I guess the website tracks the IP address accessing the site and immediately identified me as being in Taiwan. So to be nice they then change all of the text to Chinese.. I was going to post an image but I can't upload pdf files. Imagine looking at this site but all the English on the toolbars is in Chinese characters.

So I woke up this morning, looked out my window, and decided it was a good time for a run. There is this really nice park across the street from the hotel that made a really nice 7k today.

It looked so nice until you began breathing heavy (smog) and then imagine as you run around this nice park you have this view off to the side.

So after a nice run I went to the gym at the hotel and decided to do some weight lifting. Someone thought this would be a nice picture so here I am in my sweaty VR tech tee lifting weights in Taiwan. If you look at the sign on the door you can see they nicely use English and Chinese so us Americans can actually find the gym.

Note I' wasn't really sure how heavy anything was at first because everything is in metric. Anyway I lifted some weights, did my push ups and abs and then showered and I'm at the office now getting ready to do some work. I catch a flight tonight to San Francisco and with any luck I will be able to have a run Thursday morning in Taiwan followed by a run Thursday evening in California. How crazy is that? It is only an 11 hour flight to SFO from Taiwan and with a 14 hour time difference I land there three hours before I left. Confusing?

Taiwan

So here's how my Monday/Tuesday was spent. Spent the morning with the family and then stopped by work on my way to the gym. I'm not going to be able to do much running this week so I jumped on the treadmill and 2:02 later I had finished my first official 1/2 marathon on a treadmill. Quick shower and it was off to the airport for my 5:20 flight. This is where the fun begins. Five hours later I hit LAX airport for a 4 hour layover. I had to change terminals and check in for my international flight which actually took the better part of 2 hours. It seems everyone is headed back to Asia for the Chinese New Year so the lines were ridiculous. Well then comes the 15+ hour flight to Taiwan (it was delayed by 30 minutes to add even that much more time). So after customs and a ride through the city I was in my hotel just over 25 hours after leaving Cleveland. I had 2 hours to shower, change, and call the family before getting picked up to come over to our factory where I sit now after morning meetings getting ready for lunch.
Lunches here are always interesting. I eat in the factory cafeteria. If you have a weak stomach you should just pass on even walking into the place. Most of the food is unrecognizable at best. I tend to just grab some of everything in an adventurous way and hope it doesn't kill me (it hasn't yet).
I'm going to go for a run in the morning in this cool park across the street from my hotel so I'll have some cool pictures I hope. Tomorrow after spending 41 hours in Taiwan I will catch a plane back to CA. Luckily the return flight to SFO is only 11 hours and I am spending the night and Friday morning in CA for a meeting. This should help with jet lag and get me back in the spin of things by Saturday. Man I wish I could run the Buckeye 50k Saturday but everyone will just have to have fun without me.
Till I'm back on the same side of the planet, have fun.

Cold

So what do you do when you wake up and it's 4 degrees outside? Well if your name is Vince you go to the Nat to run on the track. Otherwise you head down to the Gorge to run. There was a small group of 6 running this morning (me taking the picture and Ryan was still getting out of his car). Notice the lack of a face on the guy in between Bob and Bill. That isn't photoshop (did I say it was cold). We all stayed in a group together for the first loop up through the cave and along the falls.

The river had frozen solid although the falls were roaring. It's funny how cold I felt but only on my left side just around my hip. So I look to see what is going on and the top of my water bottle had cracked and my shirt is frozen. Not like cold frozen but like a solid piece of inflexible ice and my pants were pretty close to the same. So what is there to do but speed up.

After about 3 miles Bob had managed to get us all down to a 9:30 pace on the iced over trails. So Bill, Ryan and I slowed down and formed the rear pack. We would only run into the other pack once in the next 5 miles of running. We ended up running the signal tree loop (my first time) and then we crossed over the road and ran along the river for a total of 9 miles. I should have gotten in more but did I mention it was cold?

Bill started reaching for my hat laughing (him and Ryan had white frozen beards) and it turns out I had a nice sized icicle hanging just below my ear on my hat. When I got back in the car I grabbed my camera and took a picture. Ignore the funny looking guy in the picture but look at my left ear (right side for those of you looking at the picture). I zoomed in so you could see what was left after Bill broke off the rest of my icicle. Did I mention it was cold.

What is in a name

I collapsed in bed last night and woke up 10 hours later refreshed and ready to go. So I spent the morning trying to get through the pile on my desk and of course partaking in the weekly Friday ritual of Penera's Bagels. So to get a little extra in I headed to the gym in time to get a 2 mile warm up on the treadmill before my yoga class. As I was early I got to see the lunchtime crew arrive at the gym one at a time and say hello to each. It hit me that I really don't know the names of half the people I see there on a given day. Those of us that have become friends have taken to naming the other less social visitors to the gym. There is Mr. Shoulders, Nikki (think of the Prince Song), Nut Cracker, Best in Show, Mr. Personality, Lil big man, Ego lifter, and a few others that I care not mention. I ran into best in show out with my wife one day and I was very embarrassed when she called me by name and said hello. You know the introduction that goes like this. Honey this is hmmm hmm from the gym. Followed by hmmm hmm this is my wife. I damn near introduced her as best in show but luckily for once my mind was faster than my mouth.

Anyway time to put the kids to bed and start making sure all my clothes are clean for my travels the next couple weeks. Taiwan next week followed by Denver and Salt Lake City the following week. Luckily it has worked out so I will be home next weekend in between the trips. I'm going to hit the streets of Taipei for a run. I think I'll try to get a picture of my in a VR tank top on the streets of Taiwan.

Finding the Limit

I have found now that the way I am dealing with stress is to take it out on my body by running and exercise. I seem to be able to clear my mind while participating in these activities and focus my energy in a more positive way.
This week was our annual performance reviews and bonuses as well as the week after I signed up for my first race of 2008. I also had a two root canals schedule for first thing in the morning Monday so I had to take the morning off work. This brings me to the beginning of my week.
So I hit the dentist office Monday morning, put on my iPod and the needles, numbness, and drilling begins. 1-1/2 hour later I can't feel half my face and I have two more dead teeth in my mouth fitted with very nice color matching crowns. As it is only 9:30am and I have taken the whole morning off work I figured why not head to the gym. So I put in almost 6 miles on the treadmill and then decide that as it is supposed to be my cross training day I will join the spinning class. Note to self added blood flow caused by increasing your heart rate causes numbness to go away very fast and leads to pain. By the time I was done I had a full two hours in at the gym and had to pop 4 Advil to take the edge off the pain (Note that I never take medications as a norm. I even had to find someone in the office to dispense these meds).
Onto Tuesday and review day. We had our "state of the union address" in the morning as a company and then everyone broke down into their departments for individual review. I found out mine would not be until the afternoon so I was once again off to the gym. I put in three miles on the treadmill and then headed for a bootcamp class followed by some lifting. So another two hour day at the gym and back to work for the surprising good news. The review went much better then I expected.
Wednesday was to be a more relaxed day until I was informed that I would be leaving next Monday for Taiwan. The stress level hit the roof at this point. I already have a business trip planned in two weeks and now I get to spend next week in Taiwan. How the hell am I supposed to train and when will I see the family. To heck with this I'm heading to the gym. So 8 miles later on the treadmill at faster then normal pace (at one point the guy behind me moved because he thought I might come off the back). Then to the normal pull ups, push ups and abs. Third day this week that I completed two hours worth of working out. I headed home but was so slammed with work that I honestly think I spent about 1 hour with my family the entire evening. After some calls to CA and to Taiwan I finally crawl into bed at 2:00am.
Today the alarm goes off and I don't move. I finally get ready for another day and get the kids dressed. My wife arrived home at around 7:50 and I was off to drop my son by daycare and head to work. By 11:00 I was feeling really slow so I grab a triple espresso and add a packet of hot chocolate mix. I'm pretty sensitive to caffeine and this gets me moving quick. By 12:00 I'm at the gym and take a gu with caffeine of course to keep my energy level up. I hop on the treadmill, slam the iPod onto full volume and hit the angry music that gets my heart going. I have a huge burst of energy from the caffeine and get the treadmill up to about a 7:30 pace. Then it happened.
At about 2.5 miles I started feeling the cold chills go through my body and then a little light headed. It almost seemed like dehydration but that wasn't it. Then I looked down at the display and the numbers looked a little fuzzy with black dots. My first thought was that I had sweated onto the display and I tried to wipe it away with the towel. And then it all came together and I shut it down. Lets see, 2+ hours of strenuous exercise a day followed by stress and a night of 5 hours of sleep and then a caffeinated run at high speed without enough food to sustain it. I had hit the limit. I know that I can be pretty hard on myself some times but what the hell was I thinking. So I've headed back to the office for a good lunch and some relaxing time. Close my office door, set the phone to do not disturb, close the blinds and turn on some relaxing music. I'll get home tonight and institute a mandatory bed time and then tomorrow I'll evaluate things and enjoy my Yoga class.
I guess we all have our limits.

CES 2008

Well I missed out on running but it was worth it. Every year I head to Vegas the second week of January to attend the largest toy show in the world, The Consumer Electronics Show. This year I flew out the Saturday before the show with my wife so we could have the weekend to enjoy before my meetings started on Monday. Well to make a long story short the dice and tables were good to me and both Lesa and I came home with pockets a little heavier. I even won money on the Ohio State game which was difficult being a OSU fan. So if anyone is wondering what I call the worlds largest toy store here are some examples

108" LCD TV

52" LCD TV. This TV is only 1 inch thick.

Bumblebee from the Transformers Movie. It had to be 50' tall

Cool custom motorcycle. I wanted to take this for a spin

Custom car with crazy stereo and electronics

Chrysler 300S with Lambo doors up front and suicide doors in the rear. Cool custom work.

Great Song

I was our for a run a little while ago and a song that I did not remember came on my mp3 player. I had downloaded some new music for the Richmond Marathon a few months ago and grabbed a list of songs to run to. Apparently on the list was a song called "I Run for Life" by Melissa Etheridge. I was about 8 miles into my run when this song came on and was just hitting the comfortable part for me (from around 6 miles to around 10 miles during a run). Well all I can say is that I replayed this song about 5 times each time listening to the words and I completely lost track of my running. I am a person that can just zone out like this (my wife says I do it while watching the TV if she is trying to talk to me). If you haven't had the chance to listen to it go ahead and do it. It is a song she sang after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

I Run For Life