Author Archives: Andy

13.1

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I know most of you are not runners, but some of you might be curious about my whole half marathon thing. The Cowtown half marathon is February 26, four weeks from yesterday.

The Race

Here are some facts:

  • A half marathon is 13.1 miles, roughly the straight-line distance between DFW International Airport and Love Field.
  • The current world record is 58:23, an astounding 4:27/mile or 13.48 mph. I don’t average much faster than that on my bike. That pace is more than 2 minutes/mile faster than my best time for a single mile. The Cowtown course record is 1:10:24.
  • Last year nearly 6000 runners finished the Cowtown half marathon. The crowd is so big that if you’re in the back of the pack when the starting horn sounds, it might take a couple of minutes before you even reach the starting line. That’s why most races use chip timing, which places an electronic sensor mat across the start and finish lines to scan a chip that’s attached to your shoe.
  • An aid station is available every 1.5 miles along the course with water, electrolytes, port-a-potties, and medical personnel in case anyone gets in trouble.
  • The route starts at Will Rogers Memorial Center and takes us near the Stockyards, up the big hill on Main Street, and through downtown Fort Worth.

I’ve done Cowtown twice at the 10K distance, and it’s a great race with good support and a fun atmosphere.

Training

I’ve been training for this race for months now using a customized plan I created on RunnersWorld.com. My training consists of three runs per week:

  • One shorter run (currently 4 miles)
  • One medium-length run (currently 5 miles)
  • One long run at a gentle pace with some walking (10 miles this week)
  • One or two bike rides to strengthen my legs (10-20 miles per week)

On most weeks, my total weekly mileage increases by one. Once a month, I get a “rest week” that cuts my total mileage by about 20 percent. By strictly limiting the increase in workload, I’m supposedly reducing my risk of injury. The longest long run I’ll do before the race will be 11 miles.

So how is it going? Good news and bad news. The bad news is that my right knee isn’t cooperating very well despite all my efforts to strengthen my legs and to avoid increasing my mileage too quickly. I hope that the cause relates to the good news: my body is growing significantly stronger and fitter. My legs have never been stronger. In fact, I might have strengthened them disproportionately and allowed my hip muscles to become relatively weak, a possible cause of my knee pain. So I’ve brought out some of my old hip exercises to see if they help.

But otherwise I feel great. I’ve set personal records (PRs) in a few distances over the last few months as my running improves. I’ve lost fat and gained muscle. My heart and lungs are doing very well and becoming more efficient. My resting heart rate is under 60 now. My lungs don’t freak out when I run in cold air like they did in my younger years. If you’d told me at age 8, when my asthma forced me to sit out some days during PE, that I would be training for a half marathon 25 years later, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But I am. With the possible exception of my time on the MacArthur tennis team, I’m probably in the best shape of my life at 33 years old.

I feel good – partly because I’m healthy and happy and have energy, partly because I’m using the body God gave me to do something special, something most people never choose to do. It’s not because I’m a great runner. It’s not because my endurance or discipline is unusually high. I simply chose a goal and started doing what it takes to reach it. You can do the same thing in whatever you are pursuing – pick a worthy goal and go after it. There is great joy in achieving something you didn’t think you could achieve. On February 26, I hope to experience that joy more fully.

This race is a big deal to me. It might be my only half marathon ever. It all depends on how my knee holds up. I might need to walk more than I would like so that my knee can rest. I’ll run as much as I can. If I can finish in two hours, I’ll be really happy. But even if I don’t, whether I run, walk, crawl, or ride in a gurney, I will cross that finish line.

Coffee

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Anderson, I want you to take a long, hard look at this cup of coffee. Now, I LOVE my coffee. It’s probably the only thing I cherish on this God-forsaken mud ball called Earth! What I’m trying to say, Anderson, is that most examiners rely on this clipboard. I don’t believe in that $%!*. What I do believe is in my cup of coffee. – License to Drive

My first cup of coffee occurred at age 17. While on a date with a girl from my church, she suggested we grab some coffee at the Barnes and Noble coffee shop. It sounded good to me, although coffee had always seemed like something adults did, so I didn’t really know how it worked or what to get. She suggested I get a mocha – nice and safe, chocolate with minimal coffee bitterness. And whipped cream on top, of course. Quite tasty. However, it was a bit humbling to realize that my 15-year-old, 100 lb date was more sophisticated than I was.

The idea of drinking coffee for the caffeine didn’t take hold until my freshman year at Baylor. My girlfriend at the time went to TCU, which meant I drove home every weekend and spent as much time with her and my family as possible before I drove back Sunday night. My parents wisely tried to convince me that driving back to school late at night wasn’t the smartest idea. But I can be a bit…stubborn at times. My solution? Coffee. Usually I stopped at some gas station and got a big cup of sugar-laden vanilla cappuccino. My 33-year-old pancreas would have hated me, but my 18-year-old pancreas manned up and handled it. What I didn’t realize at the time was that my body isn’t very sensitive to caffeine. Occasionally at Baylor, I would buy the same sugar-laden vanilla cappuccinos at the local gas station on nights that I needed to stay up and study, even though it never made much of a difference.

By sophomore year, coffee became a more important and frequent companion in my dorm room. I was taking a full load of classes with lots of reading and also working at an after-school care program 15-20 hours a week. The time had come to step up my coffee experience. I got my own coffee pot – small and cheap, maybe a 4-cup Hamilton Beech or similar. I knew nothing about brewing coffee except that my dad was always obsessed with using filtered water in his coffee instead of tap. I had no discerning palate and no filtered water, so I brewed up Folgers or Maxwell House with water straight from the bathroom faucet. Since my goal was to force my eyes open and my brain awake while I read Coriolanus or King Lear at midnight, I brewed a full pot and made it extra strong. To make it palatable, I added tons of sugar and creamer. Even they couldn’t make it pleasant.

That was a rough year.

Somehow, though, it felt noble to be a struggling college student alone with great works of literature and a pot of nasty coffee, as if I’d joined a grand fraternity of hallowed martyrs of liberal arts. And then that rat bastard prof gave me a B in World Cultures III for my troubles. But I digress…

At some point, I learned that when properly brewed from quality ingredients, coffee could actually be quite delicious even without 500 grams of sugar dissolved within. If I had to guess, I’d give my grandfather the credit. He has the magic touch. Thanks to him, I discovered the heavenly combination of coffee and birthday cake. And the pleasure of a mid-afternoon cup of coffee with a snack. And even – gasp – coffee with breakfast like normal people enjoy. Thank you, Granddaddy, for opening my eyes to the truth.

So now I’m an adult (sort of). I brew my own coffee in a stainless steel Cuisinart 12-cup using filtered water and organic, fair-trade Honduran coffee with a mild roast. It’s so good that I usually drink it black with breakfast every afternoon (I work nights). My friends James and Alexis know about good coffee, too. At family gatherings, I know to ask which pot my sister made because she knows how to brew it right. Am I a coffee snob yet? Depends on your definition. I buy my coffee at Target and drink the commercial-brewer Folgers at work with a bit of doctoring, so I’m not a total snob. But I’ve brewed Jamaican Blue Mountain (love it, but not worth 3x the price) and occasionally buy my coffee at Central Market, so I guess you could say my standards have risen a bit since the ignorance of my college days. And THAT’S A GOOD THING, believe me.

So I salute you, noble coffee bean, and all my fellow coffee drinkers. May your coffee always be hot, your grounds fresh, and your cup reusable. Cheers!

Causes

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Hamish: Where are you going?
William Wallace: I’m going to pick a fight.
Hamish: Well, we didn’t get dressed up for nothing. – Braveheart

Like many of you, I believe in living for things that are greater than yourself.

Even if your other obligations keep you, like me, from spending every minute and dollar and calorie fighting for your chosen causes, they can still provide a framework for your life and influence the decisions you make the rest of the time. If you’ve read more than two posts on here or on my Facebook feed, you already know that I have lots of causes. Perhaps I drive you crazy with them, which makes me appreciate you all the more for putting up with me and my quests, pleas, guilt trips, and fundraising campaigns.

Here are a few things I believe in:

  • Loving God and loving people
  • Protecting the environment – using less, polluting less, being a good steward of the world God created rather than exploiting it for short-term gain
  • Clean water and food for those who lack it
  • Health care for all, not just those lucky enough to afford it or obtain it through work
  • Education and job opportunity as a means of climbing from poverty and raising the standard of living for society overall
  • Better health through better choices – exercise, higher quality food and drink, toxin avoidance
  • Tolerance

Obviously, I don’t always support these goals with every choice I make. Every choice is a trade-off in some way. But I try to let them guide my decisions.

What are some of the things you believe in? What do you fight for?

It Worked!

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Yesterday numerous websites, including this one, joined together in the largest coordinated Internet blackout in history to protest two bills currently before Congress: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (House version) and PIPA (Senate) version. These bills would fundamentally change the Internet as we know it. SOPA would give the government the power to shut down any Internet site under the guise of copyright enforcement. For example, if someone complained to the government that AndyBox.com was violating his/her copyrighted material, the government could shut down the site immediately. The potential for abuse and government-sponsored censorship should be obvious. Online piracy and copyright infringement are problems that we need to address, but these bills are not the right approach.

The good news? Our protest and the lead-up publicity seem to have worked. Concerned citizens like you lit Washington up with emails and phone calls telling their representatives to vote NO on these bills. As a result, our representatives overall have a better understanding of the issues involved. According to an email I received, last week only 5 Senators publically opposed PIPA. Now that number is up to at least 35. The Obama Administration has expressed its disapproval of the bills, which suggests a potential veto even if Congress does pass the bills. The House has chosen to postpone action on the bill pending further debate and study. We haven’t won yet, but things are looking much better for all fans of a free Internet and the First Amendment.

If you haven’t already, please visit American Censorship to contact your representatives in the Senate and House and share your concerns.

Jonathan Starts School

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Better late than never! As promised, I finally posted some pictures from Jonathan’s first day of school (Jan 3). He’s in the one-year-olds class with Miss Rose and seems to be having a great time. He eats so well that he finished his lunch during snacktime, so Miss Rose asked Jenny to pack him more. He’s on the other side of the school from Brenden, but they do see each other sometimes during the day. They started Jonathan off on a shortened schedule (9-11am) for the first few days so he could adjust, but he’s doing fine now and stays in school from 9-2:30p just like Brenden. Jenny is enjoying the time off, and we both are very glad the boys are doing so well and enjoying it so much.

Pics from Jonathan’s First Day

Haiku Tuesday 26 – Jonaku

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Tomorrow, January 18, my younger son Jonathan turns two years old. To celebrate, I wrote haiku about him:

Happy little boy
Has it really been two years?
Love to see that smile

Your face is a mess!
Yogurt in hair, bean juice smeared
I don’t think you care

There’s nothing quite like
The way you run to hug me
When I come back home

Wish him a happy birthday with a personal haiku from you!