I'm here

Well after a total of 22 hours (20 hours of flights and a 2 hour layover in LAX) I'm here and just finishing my first day in the office. It is a full 12 hours difference so I left CLE at 9:00 PM and 22 hours later I get to Taiwan at 7:00 am. Just enough time to go to the hotel and shower/eat before getting picked up at 9:00 to go to the factory. The nice thing was the new EVA airlines plane for the 15 hour flight from LA. I was in deluxe class with individual touch screen LCDs in each seat. On demand video with a choice of around 7 American movies to pick from. Many foreign films as well as sitcoms. The system allows you to pause rewind and fast forward with on screen touch control. It also has video games, music, and other options. Nothing makes 15 hours seem short but it does make it almost bearable.

Well 2 more days of work, maybe 3 if we come in on Saturday, and then it is off for 3 days of nature and hiking to the top of Yushan Mountain. I'm pretty excited and I think I have everything I need. Pack, super light sleeping bag good for 40 degrees, power bars, trial mix, craisins, tuna fish, water, titanium spork, shoes, cloths, headlamp, hat, gloves, etc. It will be 75-80 degrees when we start the hike and around 40 at the top so I've got the layers worked out.

I'm really missing the family and feel bad that my wife has to deal with all of the crazy schedules with the kids plus work while I'm here in Taiwan. Part of it is work but I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the climb. I guess I will owe her big time when I get back for not complaining and allowing me to take part in what I believe is one of those once in a lifetime opportunities.

Oh and I have my camera and cell phone. Plenty of pictures and I'll be calling home and sending a picture from the 13,000 feet. Now I just have to figure out how to make one of those cool video's like Maria.

Is winter here

Like so many Ohio runners I have slacked off a little the last week or two but still manage my weekend runs of 10+ miles to keep with my goal of averaging a run of 1/2 marathon distance or more once a week.

I had a rough Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning of work (yes my occupation tends to require me to work days/nights/and just about whenever necessary) so Wednesday afternoon I just needed an escape. I hit the Boston store at noon, laced up my shoes and headed North. When I hit the first entrance to the carriage trail it looked pretty good but I just kept going on the towpath. Well I couldn't resist the second opportunity so I took a right and headed up the hills of the carriage trail. I had been keeping a pretty good pace of around 9:30 min miles up to this point but had a slower 10:20 mile heading up the hills here. I didn't remember the loop being as long as it was and just kinda zoned out when I saw a sign indicating 2+ miles left. I started looking at the trees without leaves and trying to identify the species. I was very good at this during my years of working at a nursery and doing landscape plus on the hikes I took growing up. It seems I have lost some of this knowledge and I'm going to do a little research again to help me identify some of the more obscure Ohio trees to try and pass some of this onto my children.
At this point a song by Evanescence came on my iPod and my thoughts drifted to two people who passed away in the last few weeks. One is a 16 year old Hudson High School student who helped as an assistant instructor at the Taekwondo Studio my children and I go to. It was a completely unexpected loss that has hurt many people. Her older brother is also an instructor there. The second individual was at a completely different place in life. He was a 54 year old father of 4 that I have known for almost 20 years. I had seen him last year and we both commented on the weight we had lost. My 75 lbs didn't compare to his weight lose however mine was due to a healthy lifestyle change while his was due to cancer. Unfortunately I was out of town traveling and did not learn of his passing until after the funeral. I have however learned that they have set up a college fund to help his children who are all in high school / college now. Maybe I will be able to provide some small help.

Well all of the thought came to a close as I approached the 6 mile mark of my run. My energy was down a little and I was just about to hit the hill down to the towpath. I felt like I just wanted to sit down at the top of the hill and listen to the trees for a while and lay in the leaves as I did in my back yard as a child. There is absolutely nothing that brings back the memories like the smell of leaves in the fall. Unfortunately I had been away from work for a while at this point and thought I needed to head back. I reached into my pocket and found a green apple gu which contained some Caffeine. So I took the Gu, drank some Gatorade, and switched gears on the iPod.
As I found on my way down the hill, the park has removed some of the barricades that were so fun to try and run around at top speed. This let me keep the speed up while running down hill on piles of loose leaves which hide every root, dip, and bump in the path. I hit the towpath, made a left and actually picked up the pace some. At this point my next mile (mile 8) was completed at a 7:28 pace. Wow, where did that come from, and it was after the downhill so this was on the flat towpath. Mile 9 turned out sub 8 as well and my average pace for the 9 mile run ended up at 8:55. This is pretty impressive as my PR at the Buckeye 1/2 was an 8:21 pace and I managed an 8:55 on what started as a relaxing run. The run even included some pretty serious hills and climbs on the Carriage trail. I'll chalk this up to Caffeine.

Climb Mount Niitaka

I don't expect many of you to know what this refers to but it was the secrete code used by the Imperial Japanese Navy to begin its attack against Pearl harbor on Sunday December 7, 1941.

So now that the history lesson is over I'm sure some of you are wondering what the hell I brought that up for in the middle of October. Well it's now official, I'm climbing that mountain. Niitaka is the Japanese name for Mount Yashan (Jade Mountain in english) which is the tallest mountain in Taiwan with an elivation of 12,966 ft (nearly 600ft higher then Fuji). As a reward for a rather large amount of business I helped facilitate for our company the COB has invited me along with most of the upper management of our company on a three day climbing expedition in Taiwan (where our companies COB lives). The more and more I find out the more excited I get. My family wasn't so excited about me leaving for 9-10 days to go climb a mountain but after showing my wife what I would be doing I think we all agree it is a once in a lifetime opportunity especially as the company will be picking up all the costs as a business expense. Although I will spend a few days at the office in Taiwan and visit some customers, the nearly $5,000 which it would cost to go if it wasn't for the company would make this trip impossible.

I would also like to note that this is yet another opportunity that is presented thanks to me getting my 250+lb ass off the couch 6 years ago to get in shape. The climb involves approximatly 6-1/2 hours of climbing the first day followed by a night in a lodge. We will then get up at around 2:30am for a 3:00am departure time the second day. It is around 2 to 2-1/2 hours from this base camp to the summit where we will then stay to watch the sun rise at 13,000 ft. This is above the cloud level and based on the pictures I've seen should be unbeleavable if the weather holds. Once the sun rises it is then another 5-1/2 hours back to the starting point the base which can be extended into a two day decent if we travel down the back side and visit some of the more amazing views including waterfalls, nature, etc. So I leave a week from Monday and while everyone I know is attending Halloween parties I will be sleeping in Tiawan getting ready to begin the climb.

In case anyone is interested I will try to attach a youtube video here showing some pictures of one groups climb just click on the photo below. I'm sure I'll have my own when I return.

Watching Others Succeed

So where to start. I put in two hard days of running last weekend. 10 miles on Saturday and then 4 on Sunday. Not hard due to distance but more due to speed and timing. Early morning runs while pushing the pace some are not my strong suit. But the company on Saturday was great. I ran with the two of the people who have put more miles on with me then anyone else that I have run with (not that the rest of you haven't been great company as well). The person who would be third on the list was a no show due to a long night of work. The conversation was great and varied from sex to politics to children and I think we even talked about running.

So Sunday morning was the Towpath Marathon which represented my first time helping out at a Marathon aid station. Nick was running the 8 mile station at the turn and requested us to be there by 7:45. So at 6:45 I arrived and met with another volunteer to put in a few miles on the towpath. We headed south but quickly ran into trail blazers who were guarding the towpath (it was closed due to the race). We told them we were working the aid station and would be back in about 30 minutes. They laughed a little and then as we ran off the one guy yelled "your shitting me right?". Well after putting in a couple more miles at around an 8:40 pace we return to the crossing and they dude says "you just lost me a bet". Apparently they thought we were feeding them a line and were just crashing the course early in the morning. Go figure, why would someone be running on the towpath at 6:45 in the morning before spending a couple hours volunteering.

So we started setting up and all the volunteers started arriving. We had an interesting discussion with regards to the sports beverage they had decided to use. I didn't have any experience with "Ultima" but after Sunday I would like to avoid it. The container looked like something out of a laboratory and after inhaling some of the powder while mixing this stuff I don't want to be drinking it. Check out the label. And what happens to this stuff after 24 hours?

Well we were supposed to have some music at the rest stop but someone didn't hook us up as planned so it was put onto me. I have an FM transmitter for my iPod (yes I'm a tech geek) so Melissa pulled up her car and we were in business. The only problem is my wide taste in music. We were treated to a mix of anything between, Eminem, Disturbed, Lord of the Dance, Pink, and watching dances to London Bridge. Well after my masculinity was challenged due to the large presence of Irish step dancing music in my running tunes directory we decided Melissa would be in charge of the Music so that we didn't disturb the runners to much. Well wouldn't you know it as one of the first women came through with the walkers who were able to start an hour early this lovely lady who looked to be over 50 thanks us for the music to break up the race. When she left we all had a laugh about spending 8 miles in NE Ohio on one of the most beautiful days with the leaves changing colors enjoying the quit trip down the towpath and then hitting mile 8 and I honestly remember some pretty heavy music playing. May have been POD, Disturbed, or System of a Down and she honestly thanked us.

Well had a great time. Got to see many friends have great races while at the same time getting my run in and still getting back to the family in a reasonable time. Congratulations to all the runners and sorry to everyone who drank the Ultima. You really didn't want to see the bucket it got mixed in or to know that Nick stuck his whole hairy arm it it to stir it :)

Great day, great runners, great volunteers, great day. Some pictures I took.

Year to Year review

So on a whim today I compared this years running to last. It seems that at this point last year I had accumulated 1213 miles. Looking at this years totals it seems to be a meager 869 miles. This is almost a 30% drop in my total mileage from last year. On top of this my average speed during my workouts has increased by at least 10% so it seems I have spent 40% less time running this year as last. I think most of this can be attributed to increased travel and an increase in my children's ages/activities. The odd thing though is that I have also set many PR's this year in shorter races.

And in the end. I seem just as happy this year as last and haven't really noticed a large difference with the exception of having more friends in the running community.

Hmm Lots of data.... No real conclusions drawn from them. Not much like me huh. Maybe it's time to stop tracking the miles and just enjoy them.