Corporate Challenge Update
I am finally getting around to posting an update on what happened at the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge. I would have done it sooner, but I spent the day on Friday packing for this last weekend's camping trip to Warren Dunes in Michigan, which I will be blogging about later.
Thursday evening was a gorgeous evening for the race with warm temperatures and a slight breeze. As you know I was a little pensive about how I would do. Once I met up with Kelly, we swung by her company's tent said hello to a few people and then stopped by my company's tent to grab a water and say hi. From there we made for the starting line where approximately 23,000 other racers were lined up. My company had about 700 people signed up for the race which was the largest corporate group next to JP Morgan Chase, who sponsors the race. After standing around in the herd of people for what seemed like forever and several speeches from sponsors the race finally started. Well, as you can imagine, with that many people, the race was slow going at first as Kelly and I dodged worked hard to dodge the walkers and runners who were running a slower pace as us. After the first mile Kelly had us timed at about a 11 minute mile. We kept going from there working our way through the
hordes of runners and walkers. At mile 2 we were still on a 11 minute mile pace when I started to feel some tightening in my ankles which had been holding up surprisingly well to that point. Thanks to Kelly's encouragement I was able to fight through and ignore the pain until it I didn't really notice it anymore. Just before mile three Kelly's cold started to get the best of her a bit and this time it was my turn to encourage her a bit. I must have worked because she pushed through it and the last half mile it was all I could do to keep my pace up to keep up with her. We ended up finishing the race in 37 minutes, which is just under an 11 minute mile. This was 8 minutes better than I ran it in last year. This year I was able to run the whole thing without walking once, which was a big accomplishment for me. Shortly after the race I was feeling pretty good, which Kelly attributed to the fact that I am better cardiovascular shape than I thought, since my heart rate recovered pretty quickly.
From there we grabbed some water and our free t-shirts and walked over to my company's tent for a hot dog, some beer, and a couple of cookies. We traded "war" stories with some other runners and then headed over to her companies tent for a little while before she had to hop on her bus and head home.
All-in-all the race went pretty well I thought. The only real problem I had was some soreness in my ankles and my right
Achilles tendon, which I am chalking up to caring around 10-15 extra pounds that I don't need. Now if I could lose that I would feel
pretty darn good!
Well, tonight is the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge. There are 22,000 people signed up to compete and my company has the largest number of participants next to JP Morgan. Its a 5k race, that I ran in last year and had a horrid time of 45 minutes. My goal is to try and break the 42 minute barrier this time around and I can safely say that I have been running more coming pu to this race, but I am definitely caring around about 10 more lbs than I want to be. This extra weight has been hard on the ankles and I am hoping that they don't give out before the end of the race. I have new shoes but, they didn't seem to help the other night when I went out for a run. I had a professional help me pick them out so they should be the right kind. Part of the problem is my inflexibility. I really need to stretch more so I don't tighten up so quick after I start running. Basically, I need to:
- Eat better
- Exercise more
- Stretch more
- Read more
- Get out more
More Than Meets the Eye!
Ok, so I am going to show my true nerd colors here, but I am totally psyched about the release of the live action
Transformers movie being released on July 4
th. I have seen some recent
trailers for this flick and it looks like its going to be awesome. If you are like me and spent the 80's watching cartoons like Transformers, GI Joe,
Thundercats, etc then you can understand my excitement. I grew up watching these cartoons and playing with the toys. Unfortunately, today's animation just doesn't measure up in my opinion. Nowadays it seems like everything is dumbed down and the story lines are a lot more geared towards little kids whereas, the cartoons of the 80's had a more adult feel to them and treated the viewer like they were smart
enough follow along.
Labels: Movies, Transformers
Hello From Nashville!
Well, as you may or may not know, I have been spending the week in Nashville, TN at the
Gaylord Opryland Resort for the
Forrester IT Forum. It is a week long conference on the Information Technology field, or as I am going to start calling it "Business Technology." The week consists of keynote speakers from around the industry, topical sessions on various
BT information given by industry analysts, vendors and leaders in the field. Its vary educational and I already have pages and pages of notes. I actually had some down time before
the 9:30 session today so I thought I would put in a long overdue post.
As I stated I am staying at the Gaylord
Opryland and this place is massive. Apparently it is the largest hotel space in the US with 3 massive indoor
atriums and one outdoor. There was a mistake when I checked in and the cheaper room that I had reserved was no longer available so they upgraded me to a suite that has a balcony that overlooks one of the huge
atriums. They said the room normal goes for $700 a night but since they made a mistake they gave it to me for the rate was paying for the cheaper room ($179). The room comes equipped with a 37 inch plasma TV, fridge, dining area, etc. I guess I lucked out this time. Since I have been here I have tried to get some exercise in and hit the site's gym on Monday and Tuesday. I also went for a swim in one of their pools. I took yesterday off but will probably do some running this afternoon after the conference is done.
Last night Forrester sent us all to the
Wild Horse Saloon in downtown Nashville, where our dinner and entertainment was all paid for. It is a huge live music facility where many famous country music stars got there start as well as performances from
today's stars. They had a live band that was actually pretty good. They played a little of country and rock so it was fun to listen as I got my butt kicked in pool by some guys from
Fibernet (one of the vendors at the conference). The food was good and I took a couple of picks before I left as well as hitting the gift shop for a couple of shirts for Kelly and I. After that I headed back to the resort where I met up with a guy from GE that I met a few nights ago. We went down to the Jack Daniels Saloon and talked guitars and listed to some live music for a while before I called it night. Well, that's all for now. My 9:30 session is coming up so I will try and post more later.
One 5 game win streak later...
...and the Cubs are in 2nd place in the Central Division. Not sure if this due to the relatively watered down nature of the division this year or if they are starting to get their "300 Million Dollar" act together. Granted they have been beating some pretty average to bad teams lately. Most notably the Cards, Bucs, and Nationals. They should get a real test soon on their east coast road trip against the Mets. If they swing a series win there may be some room for optimism, cautious optimism. At any rate its kind of cool that the Brew Crew is doing well. Since the Cubbies are in a race to catch them now, it might be a good time to see if some tickets are available for the next series with them. Could be fun!
Labels: baseball, Cubs
