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Races

This is it. For so long I have allowed myself to get so horrendously out of shape, I have forced myself to do the rediculous. I am making an attempt at qualifying for the Boston Marathon.

For those that do not know, Boston is the only World Major Marathon that has a qualifying time, and to make it is an honor (also, I have to register before it fills up).

In the spirit of getting ready, I have a summer series of races scheduled. Starting with very short, to pretty long.

Heartbreak Hill 5K

Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

12 June 2010

Anyone who knows anything about the Boston Marathon knows about Heartbreak Hill. Part of the Newton Hills that happen between 18 and 21 miles into the race, they are a killer. I can think of no better race to begin on this. It is right around the corner from my house, and a prominent part of my goal for next year.

Running with the Wolves 10k

Marlborough, Massachusetts

28 July 2010

I picked this race because of its location. I grew up in Marlborough. It is my hometown and this is a small 10k on familiar ground. In high school, I have run nearly every inch of this town in 5 years of cross country and track and field, so to have a comfort level this early in my training will be good for morale.

Cigna/Elliot 5K

Manchester, New Hampshire

12 August 2010

My firm runs this race every year, and I have done worse and worse every year. Make no bones about it, I am finishing this race sub-16. The course is fairly flat for about 1 1/4 miles before sinking for 1/2 a mile and ends on 1/4 mile hill.

Moose on the Loose 10 Miler

Nashua, New Hampshire

22 August 2010

This race I knew nothing about. It's in the dead of summer, so the good news its in the woods, out of direct sunlight, and I have an affinity for trail blazing. Apparently its a pretty big race for New Hampshire

Laborers Labor Day 10 Miler

Marlborough, Massachusetts

6 September 2010

Remember when I said I was familiar with the roads of Marlborough. Well turns out this race starts right where I started my first ever 10 mile run in high school. This should be an experience. The roads are mostly covered in trees, so should be good and shady.

Wicked 1/2 Marathon

Salem, Massachusetts

25 September 2010

In the leap toward attaining the status of Marathon Runner, one must first run a 1/2 Marathon. This race is pretty close to the marathon I am going to run in October, but to get a decent time in a race longer than 10 miles is important, and unfortunately, there aren't many half marathons this time of year. Pace and effort to be determined.

Bay State Marathon

Lowell, Massachusetts

17 October 2010

The Bay State Marathon is widely considered one of the best organized races, creates some of the fastest times, and is the best chance at qualifying for Boston, also it's in October, and is plenty of distance away from Boston. I ran this back in 2004 with some pretty dismal results. At mile 18 my knee decided that enough was enough and led me and my face straight to the pavement. Hands bleeding, knee impossible to bend, I hobbled off to the side and waited for the Red Cross van to pick me up. 2 weeks on crutches and some PT after that, walking was a breeze, but I pretty much stopped running there. Now I am back to conquer the race that beat me, and to do it in less than 3 hours.

MHS Alumni Frozen Toe (2.67 Miles)

Marlborough, Massachusetts

25 November 2010

I ran this race every year from 2000 to 2008. I won it in 2000 as a member of the MHS Cross Country team, and every year since then has been worse than the last. I am looking for a great time.

PR 14:44

This race is a combination on road and trails. It features a long daunting half mile up hill exactly 1 mile into the race. Contains another short but very steep hill at right around 2 miles in. 2 loops, cold days (ran in 8 inches of snow once) and ends with beer and clam chowder in the parking lot. THEN ITS THANKSGIVING DINNER! I am looking forward to it. I think the winning time last year was under 14 so it is some good competition.

This is all

January Comes to a Close

This has so far been an eventful year, a new start to a lot of things.

So far this year:

I had a fantastic and quiet New Years in the woods of western New York in a gorgeous stone house with continuous steady snow fall and fire going all of the time.

Made my first ever visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Here I saw the 2004 World Series ball to end game 4 and clinched my Red Sox their first World Championship in 86 long agonizing years. (next to it was the infamous and very real bloody sock) Also got to see Jim Rice's plaque, he finally made it into the HoF.

Made it to the Ommegang Brewery. It so happens to be in the same townt as the HoF. They stopped playing Ultimate Frisbee Tournaments there the first year I was going to play, and they have amazing Belgian Style ales. This isn't my first brewery tour, but it was an interesting one and we got to try all of their beers, and I was actually pretty surprised on how small the whole operation was.

I visited the JFK Library for the first time as well. I live in Boston, it isn't even hard to get too, but I just never went. I am glad I did. The history that was made in his short 3 years in office were incredible. Note: The Edward M. Kennedy Senate Institute should break ground right next to it, I cannot wait to see that completed.

Went to my first yoga class ever. Contrary to my original belief, yoga is not just stretching, it is much more difficult than that. It was 90 minutes of exhaustion, and I was not properly hydrated for working out in a 90 degree heated room with 40 other people. After downing 2 nalgenes of water during the class I proceded to drink 2 more immediately after and 3 more throughout the day, and I still had a headache. BUT I WILL GO AGAIN!

Which brings me to my next thing, I started going to the gym again. I set a minimum of 3 times a week, but I would like to go 5 times a week, with yoga on Saturdays. My ultimate goal is to run a marathon in October. I am horrendously out of shape, particularly because I used to be a runner, and I did train and complete a marathon before. I injured myself and basically quit running, but I didn't quit my eating habits. Time to change both of those things.

I also picked up snowboarding this year, infact, I picked it up yesteday. And I am in pain. So when I am not going to Yoga on saturdays, I will find me on a mountain ruining my body to go faster down mountains on a flexible board attached to my feet... we call this fun. I was a skier when I was younger, but then didn't ski for years. So I was happy to pick this up.

That brings me to today. Nothing of note happened. Went to brunch with a friend of mine I don't see often enough, had a burrito for lunch, and if the NFL is lucky, I will tune into their expiremental week before the Super Bowl version of the All Star Game.

Hopefully February is just as good.

My Vote Tomorrow

I vote in every election I can, which is often. Being a resident of Massachusetts, I am often on the side of an overwhelming majority, but I still do not take my vote for granted. It is a vote like the one I am going to cast tomorrow why.

In the past, I got to vote for one of the greatest Senators of all time. Ted Kennedy worked hard for issues I personally care about, that have helped make the lives of ordinary American’s better. Everything from the Civil Rights Act to Maternity Leave, to Americans with Disabilities, Ted Kennedy has had a major hand in all, and we are better for it.

Now, being pushed through Congress is the largest change in health care since Medicare. For too long have health insurers been denying coverage to their customers when they need them the most. For too long have people been outright denied coverage because they are already sick or already disabled. For too long have we allowed insurers to make medical decisions based on profit. For too long have insurance premiums increased at much higher rates than inflation, and for too long the medical industry has continued to waste money on useless tests.

Ted Kennedy once said "Let us resolve that the state of a family's health shall never depend on the size of a family's wealth." That was 30 years ago. Since then we have seen democrats try and try again to make this so, only to face stiff opposition from very talented but overzealous lobbyist who often over distort facts and in many cases flat out lie about healthcare. The truth is people cannot afford healthcare. We spend twice the percentage of our GDP as the next highest country for health insurance.

When I go to the polls tomorrow to cast my vote, it will not be to affirm Ted Kennedy, it will be a vote on the principle of healthcare as a fundamental right, as a basic human dignity, and not a privilege for those that enjoy a decent job or a vast wealth.

This is what I stand for, and this is what Martha Coakley stands for, and this is why I will be casting my vote for her.

Happy Friendsgiving

Happy Friendsgiving! Like Thanksgiving, only without the hassle of going home!

PS... Waldo has a reason for being there

Periodic Table of Typefaces

This combines 2 sides of me. My love of science and organization and my love/hate relationship with all things typographical. Sorry mom and pop stores, greeting cards, and spas, and edible floral arrangers... papyrus and comic sans don't make the cut... which makes me, and every other design educated mind happy.

2009 Bracket

Well here it is, no big upsets

A Conversation with a brick.

“...and if you think of Brick, for instance, and you say to Brick, What do you want brick? And Brick says to you, "I like an arch.” And if you say to Brick, "Look, arches are expensive, and I can use a concrete lentil over you. What do you think of that Brick?” Brick says:”… I like an Arch.” - Louis I. Kahn, American Architect.

There is a reason why the brick wants to be an arch.  It is for instance, a rather stubborn material.  It doesn't want help from concrete, nor does it need help.  Roman arches still exist today, despite barbarians, mother nature, and the impact of modern civilization.  There is not so much ingenuity in the concept of a single building material for an entire construction of a building.  Where as a lentil would be cheaper and easier to build, how many lentils do you know that will last over 2000 years?  In fact, how much of today's structures will last for another century?  

An arch seems more visually appropriate because we can see how it works.  Arches work to bricks best quality, compression.  The weight from above pushes down on the bricks in the arch.  But because the radius of the inside of the arch is smaller than the outside, the bricks press on each other, where as in a lintel, the load is taken not by the concrete, but of the steel bars inside of it that takes the load in tension rather than compression.  Concrete, similar to brick, is not a tensile material, and would crumble without its hidden supporter.  These buildings still stand not because steel and concrete are inferior materials, because they are not, they stand because brick works best on its own.  In its most functional use, brick is perhaps one of the sturdiest, most effective building materials we have.  Why then is it used as a veneer, a curtain covering steel and concrete, not the least bit structural, and without support, would be blown over in a mildly windy day.  Because we know brick has feelings and needs, we should feel bad for brick, not too bad however, because in time, the faux wall will fail and brick will show it was meant for something else.

The humanistic quality of 'want' is something architects give to a lot of materials and shapes.  We say "the metal panel wants to be extruded away from the brick so that it returns back into the brick instead of having an awkward flat transition."  It is this method of characterization that we find a balance of design and functionality.  Few modern architects ever really mastered what building materials want to be.  No architect ever does earlier in their career.  It takes years of learning and mistakes before you can understand what the limits are, regardless of teaching.

Its Sparrow Hunting Season

Question: How many architects does it take to catch a sparrow?

Answer: More than our office has.

Picture this. A bunch of guys with long sticks and plastic bags attached at the end standing on tables trying to corner the birds while a nerf gun militia chases it to their side. The nerf dart flack cannon assault did little to bring the bird down, and the high ceilings we love so much allowed to sparrow to flight out of reach of our plastic bag nets.

We did, inadvertantly manage to get it into an office. We switched nerf gun tactics from "shoot down" to "shoot until its too tired to fly". Which worked amazingly. One got a hand on the poor little creature but it managed to escape into a little hole in the wall, and hopefully escaped out of the building.

The Pemi

You never realize how differently you remember places until you experience them again. Things are often very different than you remember them. Trust me. For instance, the nearly two miles of wooded ridge line from Mt. Liberty to Little Haystack... completely left out of my memory from the the first time I completed this loop several years ago.

I also don't remember ever thinking Mt. Lincoln was Mt. Lafayette and being fairly disheartend summiting Lincoln, only to find Lafayette standing proudly (and much taller) behind it. I do, however, remember there being a narrow pass on Liberty right before you reach the summit. On one side is a rather imposing wall of rock, on the other a rather daunting cliff, and in between, not much more than 18" of walking room. This pass no longer exists as part of the trail, not hard to imagine why. I also remember the bare Franconia Ridge to be an inhospitable climate. It was late June when I was there last, and the ridge was frigid. The winds were gusting strongly, and a perfectly sunny day was a dark moist evening from the time we started to the time when we ended. The mild, perfectly sunny, and calm day that we experienced this past weekend proved my warnings to be trite, and the overall experience of my mis-memory took its toll on my credibility.

About the only thing I remember with any degree of certainty is just how difficult the whole trip was. When I first completed this loop, my friend and I had planned a 4 day trip to cover all 33 miles. Plotting out our course day by day, stopping nightly at thoughtfully placed tent sites placed along the trail. However, at the start of the 3rd day, we looked at each other, exhausted and hurting, and, with our tails between our legs, hiked back to the car on a low, flat wilderness tail that cut right through the middle of the loop. We had completed just 14 miles in 2 days.

I don't know why I expected differently this time around. We had planned 14 miles of the loop for the second day. The tenacity of the trail had not changed. Our ambitious day 2 hike was cut at the same spot I had made it to in my last effort. At halfway (ultimately our final destination) it was already 3 o'clock. Another 7 miles would have had us hiking in the dark, it was time to call it a day. And so, we took that same wilderness trail back to the head.

I will complete the Pemi Loop on of these days.

Pictures to follow.

Many a Walk in the Woods

“Take it from me, if you are in an open space with no weapons and a grizzly comes for you, run. You might as well run. If nothing else, it will give you something to do with the last seven seconds of your life.” - Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods

The nice thing about working with a lot of people your own age is your common spontaneousness. What's nice about working with a lot of people your own age and own gender is the combining of many egos and the abundance of so much testosterone that we set an ambitious summer schedule for ourselves. Short of taking on all 93 summits in New Hampshire, we set and planned out one and 2 day trips through out the summer ranging from 6 miles to 25 miles in length covering a variety of mountains from Monadnock (second most climbed mountain in the world) to Katahdin at the end of the Appalachian Trail.

Because of our egotistical ambition, I got to reread a favorite book of mine, A Walk in the Woods. Bill Bryson, possibly the last man on earth you would think to be attempting the Appalachian Trail, does just that. Completing, in total, in one trip, the entire length of 2,169 miles of trail is one of my grandest goals in life, and though Bryson didn’t finish, he constantly re-inspires me to do it every time I pick up this book.

The AT is the first of its kind. A super trail that connects 11 states in a single footpath, the AT is the connection of hundreds of shorter trails kept in tact by a completely voluntary work force, a pretty impressive feat. The Appalachian Mountains for their part are one of the oldest ranges in the world. It is believed their peaks not only rivaled the Alps, but was at one point far grander than the Alps. But millennia of glacial wear and tear took their toll on the Appalachians, and with the last ice ages final withdrawal left us with much smaller mountains, but much more diverse ecological systems, and the ability to explore, unfettered an entire range on a single trail.

Saturday, 3 of us decided to climb Monadnock. Weather was bleak. Forecast was for rain, 45 degrees. That morning, the weatherman did not disappoint. The forecast was spot on. We trudged on to the mountain anyway. When we got there the ranger gave us the low down on the summit, 28, windchill gets it down to the negatives with ice along the rock faces (and if you have never been to Monadnock, the entire summit is a bare bald flat rock face) Monadnock at most times of the year is an easy climb. With 2100' of elevation change from the trail head to the summit, its not New Hampshire's most formidable ascent, but the mud, the cold weather, and the fact that this was my first climb of the year, made it seem like Mt. Liberty or Greenleaf Trail heading up Mt. Lafayette.

The daunting thing about climbing mountains is how deceitful they are. You ALWAYS think you have gone farther than you really have, and it seems that around every bend or every break in the tree top comes the possibility you are near the summit, only to be disappointed by finding more trail and more tree tops. The only true indicator that you are near the top is the sudden decrease in temperature, and the sharp rise in wind. Slowly the trees get smaller, and eventually anything taller than moss disappears. It wasn't quite as cold as the ranger said, but there was plenty of black ice. Winds between 20-40 miles an hour and nothing visible past 20'. We finally reached the summit after a brisk 2 hours, which is pretty good for a first climb. We spent as much time as we could on the top but the cold eventually got to us and we made for a hasty decent. All told, it felt pretty good to be back hiking.

Monday Morning Meeting - Entry number 1.

Everyone has them, so we are all familiar with them. It is normally the first event you attend as a new employee. Where everyone becomes familiar with you, the new person, and you smile and introduce yourself to everyone. It is where managers update other managers and their teams on whats going on and what is planned to be accomplished before the next MMM. Well, the title of this entry, the first entry, is sort of the same. Its an introduction to the blog, my first, and what I hope to accomplish.

I first got the idea for this blog when I was calmly going about my business, when all of a sudden, a phrase catches my attention. "Yeah Rick, next time just get breast implants." My mind came to a halt, as did my fingers, and thus, my excellent work ethic. By the time my mind had adjusted to its new found state of WTF, it was too late for me to interject and from that point on I decided that these oral treasures needed to be kept, expanded to context, and shared with the public; along with with the other antics, pranks, and office mishaps that take place daily in offices around the world.

I want this to be a tribute to all the 9-5ers out there who know its more like 8-6. It goes out to those of us who know its really more like 8-7...30, and it goes out to those of us who bring work home still... on the weekends. This is for those of us who are the 1 minute regulars at our local coffee shops. Where the employees behind the counter know you by name, they know when you come in, and the have your coffee ready for you just how you like it. Its for those of us whose moods are reflections of our morning commute, compounded by the answering of voicemails and emails left by clients and consultants who somehow worked later than you... or got to work earlier than you.

Most importantly however, this goes out the hard workers who sit in the cheap ergonomic chairs, whose desks never seem to be large enough, and who work behind 3 rigid pin cushions for walls; tactfully displaying important memos mixed with your favorite Dilbert Cartoons. Whose computers that might still be operating with punched cards, and the closest thing there is to a window is the nature calendar that is still hung up from last year... but it creeps you out when you realize that all of the animals are staring at you.

This is a tribute to you, dweller of the fabric box.