Month: October 2006

My pants behind me

I had just left the gym this morning and was headed to the office. I was listening to 103.5 Bob FM when I heard the following lyrics:

Standing in the middle of the road with my pants behind me…

My interpreting mind must have been in gear because I had already mostly figured out how I would interpret that before realizing I had the lyrics completely wrong, the real lyrics were:

Standing in the middle of the road with my past behind me…

I laughed out loud at myself — so totally like me to not discover I had the lyrics wrong until I was trying to interpret it. An interesting aside, a strict transliteration of “my past behind me” in ASL would be completely redundant as the body range for events happening in the past is behind the plane of the body (the present happens within the plane of the body and the future happens in front of the plane of the body) so signing the concept ‘past’ requires signing ‘behind me’. I decided I would probably interpret it as ‘past finished’. Still unsure how I would interpret ‘standing in the middle of the road’ because conceptually the lyrics were about living in the present and looking to the future not a literal road with a person standing in the middle of it but I don’t think I could have gotten rid of the ‘road’ as it was used elsewhere in the song. Oh well, I’m really not worried about it as I doubt I’ll ever have to interpret the song, whatever it was. (Of course with Gateway you never know…)

ADC: Girl Scouts-Lone Star Council’s Scenic 10 Miler

Benjamin and I finished the the second race of the Austin Distance Challenge (ADC) today. This one was the Girl Scouts-Lone Star Council’s Scenic 10 Miler which replaced the Pervasive 10 Miler from last year. The weather was cold which wouldn’t have been so bad except there was a 15 to 20mph head wind at the start of the race. The wind died down a bit when the sun came up but when we finished running the temprature was still only 51 degrees.

Don’t let the name fool you, the “Scenic” 10 Miler was 100% not scenic although we can both attest to the 10 Miler part. The course this year was on the new Toll 1 and Toll 45 roads. Yes, on the not-yet-opened roads themselves. The start of the race was between where Toll 1 crosses Wells Branch Parkway and where it crosses Shoreline Drive. The race went up Toll 1, on the flyover to Toll 45, across IH-35 and to near the Sears Telecenter, then we turned around and ran back the same way. Yes, it was an out-and-back which B and I both despise. Everything was fine until we got to mile 3 when the lead runners started heading back. Even that wasn’t too bad ’cause B and I both know that we’re not professional runners but it all went downhill from there when we started to see a bulk of people around mile 4 on their way back. The only two redeeming qualities about the route were 1) when you got to mile 5 you could see that you weren’t at the very end of the pack and 2) you didn’t have to dodge any traffic. Speaking of traffic, they had to delay the start of the race by 15 minutes (while we were stuck in the cold wind waiting) because parking was so bad. In fact, it reminded us of the parking before the Decker last year. Overall, I have to give the “Scenic” 10 Miler a ‘C’.

On the flip side, B and I had a great run and felt good at the end.

Race: Girl Scouts-Lone Star Council’s Scenic 10 Miler
Casey
Overall position 641 out of 1198
Class position (M 25-29) 41 out of 62
Chip time 1:28:10.7
Pace 8:49/M

 
Benjamin
Overall position 643 out of 1198
Class position (M 20-24) 18 out of 20
Chip time 1:28:13
Pace 8:49/M

Paces for each mile according to the Garmin:

Mile Pace
1 9:20/M
2 8:58/M
3 9:01/M
4 8:59/M
5 8:39/M
6 9:23/M
7 8:42/M
8 8:41/M
9 8:30/M
10 7:54/M

Next race: Motive Bison Stampede Half Marathon – November 12th

Edit @ 18:56 – thanks to Matt for letting me know the results were up!

Weekend Project – New Drapery

Not content with merely running a 10K in personal-record time this weekend, Benjamin and I took on the task of making drapery for the living room windows. You read that correctly – not purchasing drapery, but making it ourselves. Little did I know on Saturday morning that I would be wielding a hacksaw, screwdriver, and sewing machine all in one weekend.

When Benjamin picked out the fabric for the “wall” that was used in our wedding (photo of the ‘wall’ during original concept construction), he did it with the intention of using the same fabric later to make curtains or drapery for the windows in our living room. Two birds, one stone you might say. Ever since the wedding he has been anxious to get the project started and I was informed on Saturday morning that Project Drapery would be this weekend.

The journey began with a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase the curtain rods. Alas, none of them were short enough for what he wanted so we purchased 4 of the shortest rods with the intent of me ‘fixing’ three of them to the desired length. In addition to the rods, ends to attach to them were purchased to finish off the look he was wanting.

Armed with the hardware, we went back to the house (after a short detour to pick up our race packets) to begin construction.

Measurements were taken, discussions were had, more measurements were taken, marks were made, and construction began. I had Benjamin start taking stitches out of the existing fabric wall as I took 3 of the curtain rods to the back patio with a hacksaw in hand. 30 minutes later our 36″ curtain rods were now a short 10.5 inches and our wall-‘o-fabric was now in its parts. While Benjamin began measuring and trimming the fabric to their final size, I began installing the brackets for the hardware to the wall.

About this time we had to set the project on hold to attend Ryan’s going away get-together. We picked back up Sunday early afternoon post race (and post lunch).

As I finalized the few remaining hardware brackets as Benjamin pinned the strips of fabric for hemming. This is when the aforementioned sewing machine comes into play. Yes, yours truly can sew with the best of them — at long as they are straight lines (and yes, I see the irony). For the next several hours I hemmed fabric as Benjamin worked his magic.

The results are well worth the bandwidth – photos below

ADC: IBM Uptown Classic 10K

Benjamin and I are running the Austin Distance Challenge (ADC) again this year. The first race of the season was the IBM Uptown Classic 10K that was held earlier this morning.

When we ran the ADC races last year we didn’t train consistently for them like Jeff (jeffford) and Jonobie (jonobie) did and we really felt it in the Freescale Marathon at the end. This year we’ve been very good about following a training schedule for the past three weeks and it paid off in the race today.

Without further ado, our results:

Race: IBM Uptown Classic 10K
Casey
Overall position 912 out of 1945
Class position (M 25-29) 81 out of 139
Chip time 55:05 (personal best)
Pace 8:52/M

 
Benjamin
Overall position 914 out of 1945
Class position (M 20-24) 27 out of 36
Chip time 55:07
Pace 8:52/M

Our Garmin Forerunner 201 reported the following paces for each mile:

Mile Pace
1 8:34/M
2 8:38/M
3 9:12/M
4 8:36/M
5 9:10/M
6 8:39/M

Next time we’re going to try to start out slower as I think we started out a bit too fast. Overall, we were pretty happy with our results.

Next race: Girl Scouts-Lone Star Council’s Scenic 10 Miler – October 22nd