iTunes Data

Data mining in iTunes:

How many songs total: 14,885

How many hours or days of music: 40.7 days

Most recently played: "Blue Cajun" by the Cajun All Stars

Most played: Sexy Boy by AIR

Most recently added: NewsHour wiht Jim Lehrer podcast

Sort by song title:

First Song: "A-Tisket A-Tasket" by Chick Webb & His Orchestra
Last Song: "!@#*" by Rusted Root

Sort by time:

Shortest Song: "Hidden Track" on Marvin Gaye's The Master 1961-1984 [Disc 3]
Longest Song: "War of the Worlds" by Orson Welles

Sort by album:

First album: ABC Monday Night Football
Last album: 1969 All-Star White House Tribute (Duke Ellington)

First song that comes up on Shuffle: "One For Daddy-O" by Cannonball Adderley

Search the following and state how many songs come up:

Death - 97
Life - 311
Love - 915
Hate - 29
You - 1,462
Sex - 42

"Man, if you gotta ask, you'll never know."
-Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong

Gary

As runners and athletes we dedicate an inordinate amount of time to our passion. We sacrifice time with family, friends, and loved ones for sport and pursuit of fitness. We train for months on end, in the depths of winter, to be able to run 26.2 miles in as little time as our legs, lungs, and heart will allow.

Life, or in this case death, has a way of reminding us of what's important.

I've run thousands of miles and will likely run thousands more in the years ahead. I only have 3 uncles. Now only two.

Sadly, my Uncle Gary passed away and left me with a choice: attend his memorial or run my marathon.

In truth, there was only one option.

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
-John Lennon

No time for doubt

The past two weeks have been a total bust for my running. I'm having some serious doubts about my ability to complete the marathon in a reasonable time. My commitment to training has been abominable.

But with only 5 weeks to go there's no time for doubt.

"The strength or weakness of our conviction depends more on our courage than on our intelligence."
-Vauvenargues

...And Which Way To My Room?

It is a cruel joke this hotel plays on road-weary travelers...

"What is conceived well is expressed clearly, and the words to say it with arrive with ease."
-Nicolas Boileau

22 Miles

This 22 miler was a turning point in my training. I headed out planning to do 16 and wasn't sure I could even do that... but I felt great and just kept going.

Sure it wasn't a fast run but it reestablished the fact that I can and will run this marathon!




"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure."
-Mark Twain

Manhattan Half-Marathon

I ran the Manhattan Half-Marathon on Sunday. At 8:00 AM. In 14 degree weather. Before windchill.

Yes, it was astonishingly cold.

The kind of cold that instantly sucks the moisture from your skin. The bone-chilling freeze that turns your normally deft feet into blocks of gawky ice. The wintry blast that never allows you to warm - regardless of pace or distance.

I suppose I'd complain a little less about the cold had I run a little faster. I finished in 1:45:48 or about 8:04 per mile. All in all, not too bad. But when compared to my time for this race last year... Well, there really is no comparison.

Bottom line is that I have lost a substantial amount of endurance and fitness and there's only one way to get it back.

"Ain't nothing to it but to do it."
-Ronnie Coleman

Another Marathon

I did it... I just went right ahead and did it... I'm now signed up for The Long Island Marathon!


And now I need to start training!

"I like things to happen; and if they don't happen, I like to make them happen."
-Winston Churchill

Unresolved

I have a host of proposed New Year’s resolutions. A few of them might actually stick. However, I’m finding it difficult committing to running – specifically training for a spring marathon.

I’d weighed the Las Vegas Marathon but I wasn’t really in shape and thought… Why take a chance?

I got all fired up about the Miami Marathon but when it got cold in New York so did my training.

Several friends are lining up for the Nashville Marathon but I am finding myself out of step.

What’s a guy to do?

“Resolve, and thou art free.”
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Happy Christmas

A few Christmas indulgences I'm enjoying this holiday season:

• Sleeping in, followed by lounging till noon
  
• Strong French press coffee with cream and sugar
• A steaming stack of pancakes swimming in a sea of syrup
• Mimosas
• Roughhousing with squealing children
  
• Second helpings at dinner
• Third helpings at dinner
• Apple pie for desert
  
• Second helpings at desert
• Thirds...
  
• Super secret family recipe "Spider Cookies"
• Copious amounts of red wine
• Egg Nog with spiced rum and nutmeg
  
• Watching "A Christmas Story" over and over and over again - interrupted occasionally by checking in on the Yule Log.

Happy Christmas!

"I have not been afraid of excess: excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit."
-W. Somerset Maugham

Black Friday

I don’t often comment on current events but I feel compelled to opine on the appalling and wasteful death which occurred at the Walmart store in Valley Stream, N.Y. last week.

I wish to extend my condolences to the family, friends, and loved ones of Jdimytai Damour. I am hopeful you find some solace knowing this terrible loss has brought the meaning of Christmas into sharp focus – regrettably by underscoring what the season is not.

Walmart is not to blame for this tragedy nor is the mall security, the police or the media. Every rabid consumer queued up at that Walmart is to blame for the death of Mr. Damour. If you were there and did nothing to quell that roiling crowd you are an accomplice to murder.

I have been in similar situations; masses jostling, pressing and fighting to gain entry. It is a dangerous scenario and one that prompts, nay, demands rational thought.

For those who made the choice to huddle outside the doors of that store on this truly Black Friday, rational thought failed. Instead, wild, ignorant, and destructive lust ran wild. And for what?

On November 28th a man was killed in a rush for cheap DVD’s and those who stormed the doors are culpable.

It is, I hope, the nadir of our shameful consumerism.

"I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed."
-Jonathan Swift

The Restorative Power of Running

Though it has been said thousands of times – and more eloquently than I could hope to conjure – I still feel compelled to comment on the benefits of running.

Too numerous to count are the times I’ve been energized, uplifted and centered simply by jogging a few miles. Running has transformed me from an overweight smoker into a lean and mostly healthy person. Fitness, pride and increased confidence are but a few of the returns on my running investment.

Running has helped me cope with loss and has also brought new friends into my life.

Of course, there are the set backs… Heel spurs, knee pain, Achilles tendonitis and other overuse injuries. But these hardly register when compared to physical and emotional benefits of running.

So onward I run – through my fatigue, aches, pains and foul moods - always the better for it.

“Love life, engage in it, give it all you've got. Love it with a passion, because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it.”
- Maya Angelou

22 Minutes

Registration for the Nautica New York City Triathlon opened last night at midnight.

It sold out in 22 minutes.

I'm in! And it just happens to fall on my birthday...

"We do as we are; we become as we do."
-saying

What's Left

I had high hopes that I’d be well into my training for the ING Miami Marathon at this point. But I looked at my checkbook and what’s left isn’t enough for the entry fee … let alone the flight and a hotel.

After stretching, strengthening, foam rolling, icing and resting what’s left in my left knee is soreness.

Weeks into an effort to pull my athletic self together I found my fast on the back half of a 10 miler. I also found that my Achilles’ Heel is actually my left achilles tendon.

I’m not sure what’s left but I’ll try to make it right.

“Today, you have 100% of your life left.”
-Tom Landry

5 Great Years...

...and still running strong!

"He whom Love touches not walks in darkness."
-Plato

New Header

Quite clearly I have updated the header image of my blog. The image is of the Triboro Bridge in New York City at sunset and was taken with my Blackberry.

The bridge also happens to be in my backyard. Almost every run passes under it and some over it.

"Those who can, build. Those who can't, criticize.''
-Robert Moses

Animal Inside

That little voice has been calling out to me during workouts lately. That base, instinctual urge that drives athletes forward to the next challenge.

Visceral. Primal. Unrelenting. And impossible to ignore... That voices dares and taunts me:

"go further... go faster... go... now!"

What choice do I have?

"Be a good animal, true to your animal instincts."
D. H. Lawrence

To London!

So long Big Apple. Hello Big Smoke!

I depart for London shortly... Sure, for work, but I'm not complaining. Will my next run be in Hyde Park? The Regent's Park? Along side the river Thames?

Have any suggestions?

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."
-Samuel Johnson

Your Vote

I am counting on
your vote!

"In politics, an absurdity is not an obstacle."
-Napoleon

Edukation

One, Two, Three, Four, _______ ?

"We need education in the obvious more than investigation of the obscure."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Hello Betty!

Two years ago my wife got me the world's most amazing birthday gift. Last year she did it again by sending me to trapeze school.

Lightning has struck thrice!

We spent the weekend in the Hudson Valley, at the foot of the Shawangunk Ridge; home to some of the most renowned mountain climbing on the East Coast. The Gunks are a part of the Appalachian Mountains and the cliff face reaches 300 feet in some areas.

Oh yeah... we went mountain climbing! How COOL is THAT!?!?!?!?


Our guide was fantastic - a very experienced (and certified!) climber who made this adventure possible and safe. If ever you're in the Shawangunks and are in need of a climbing guide, Nick Farley at The Gunks Guide should be your first call.

While The Gunks offer some very difficult technical climbs. We stuck to the novice climbs, starting our first ascent on a route named Betty.

Betty may be a beginners climb but she ain't easy... It's about 150 feet of vertical cliff (though we only went up to the first pitch at about 75 feet).

"Belay on?"

"Belay on!"

Ready to climb?"

"Climb away!"

And up I went...





And down I came...


The views at the top are fantastic!






After a few ascents we moved over to a more technical climb called the RMC. This is a relatively short climb but requires navigating under and around a large overhang and shimmying across a narrow ledge in a sitting/squatting/squished up sort of way.

To wrap up the day we headed back to Betty where we set up my first reppel - basically a controlled solo decent. Way cool!

After climbing mountains all day one works up a might appetite and a thirst only an ice cold beer can quench - or eight! Behold.... the Beer Garden from the Gilded Otter in New Paltz, New York.


Yeah... it's true. I have the coolest wife there ever was.

"A gift, with a kind countenance, is a double present."
-Thomas Fuller, M.D.