Six weeks down, one third of the way through the training.

Total number of runs: 30
Total number of miles: 157.19
Total time: 21 hours, 08 minutes, 19 seconds

This past week was not the best for running. There was a lot of snow and ice that caused me to run slower or awkwardly, and I ran on Saturday and Sunday after going out to bars the nights before. Even so, I have still felt great overall and I'm still very excited and motivated about the whole thing.

This past weekend I turned 24. I'm not usually very excited about birthdays and this time around was no exception. Despite my initial misgivings, the weekend was a very good time. Laura and I met up with Steve, Dar, Lauren, and Katie on Friday night. We hung out at the Pour House downtown and I had a great time seeing everyone. On Saturday I woke up early to run and then had brunch with my parents. We all then drove out to Beverly to see my sister in her new dorm room at her new school. She seemed to be doing just fine. Saturday night I went to Our House with a variety of ultimate players, rock climbers, and other people. It was a great night, and the first time I had closed a bar down in a while. Sunday was very relaxing and a good way to recover from the previous days' festivities.

Laura bought me four fillet mignon and Call of Duty 4 for my birthday. The game is a lot of fun (and very hard), but I'm most excited about the steak. I'll have to do some research about how to cook it so maximize the deliciousness of it.

Yesterday I was motivated to get some of my Wood Elves painted. I based all of my Glade Riders and both Nobles, and am nearly done with my Alter Noble. After that I run out of things to paint since it is too cold to prime anything outside.

We are moving our office on Thursday, so this past Friday and today were designated as packing days. I don't have an office per say, so I was assigned the storage closet and work rooms to pack up. With the possible exception of Gerry's office, each one of those rooms probably has more stuff in them than any single office. I finished the storage room at 1pm today, and started on the work room this afternoon. It looks like tomorrow I will be packing up the rest of the work room, my desk, and the work study desk. I am so tired of packing boxes and dealing with the move.

Total number of runs: 25
Total number of miles: 130.51
Total time: 17 hours, 17 minutes, 03 seconds

This past week of training was phenomenal. The six miler on Wednesday was cold but Lisa and I kept a good pace and ran through it with no problems. The other six miler I ran alone on Saturday and found myself at the 3 mile mark a lot faster than I thought I would. Coming off of those two good runs I was feeling pretty confident about the 12 miles Lisa and I were going to do on Sunday. We managed 9 minute miles the entire way, and I felt very good all the way up to mile 10.

I don't think I've ever been in shape like this, and my confidence is through the roof. I am really excited about my training and the prospect of running the marathon; I think it is going to go very well.

Spoony and I played 40k yesterday. It was the first time I have used an Ork list and he beat me. There is a lot more finesse involved in this army than the Marines, or even the Tau. However, it was a very fun list to play and I'm excited about learning how to use it.

I went to Metro with Laura yesterday with the intention of seeing where my top-rope stamina was. I climbed seven climbs (four 5.10's and three 5.11's) and at the end of the day I felt fine. However, on sustained climbs I was struggling towards the end and both Laura and I had to take a break in the middle of our session to let our arms recover. My strength is very high right now but my stamina is not where I would like it to be. That being said, I think it was a very successful afternoon and I know that the stamina issues can be resolved quickly.

Alex Maas was in town this weekend. Laura and I went to a bar with him on Friday night. It was good to see him again and to catch up.

Total number of runs: 20
Total number of miles: 99.28
Total time: 12 hours, 53 minutes, 07 seconds

I was under the assumption that I would top 100 miles yesterday but I'm not terribly disappointed. I spent all day on Saturday at work, so I was not very excited to go out running on Saturday night. It ended up being a great run and I ran consistent 9 minute miles the whole way. Lisa and I finally got to run together on Sunday, and with Culla we had a fantastic afternoon. The 11 miler started off slow, but towards the end we were cruising. I felt great the whole time and could have easily gone for several more miles, but we were all hungry and wanted to get home. I have a whole lot of confidence coming out of that run; I believe in the training and in my ability to see this whole thing through.

Laura and I made a gingerbread house yesterday afternoon. It turned out really well and was a lot of fun to make. When we were done we tried to eat the left over frosting but almost immediately decided it was a bad idea.

I woke up this morning at 7:30 after a huge thunder clap had me sitting bolt upright. After looking outside and seeing sheets of rain I decided to take the bus to work. I saw three or four gorgeous fixes (and their hardcore riders) making their way through the rain and now I feel like a wuss.

I'm currently bidding on some Wardancers on ebay. If I win I'll have enough models to get my Wood Elf army up to 1000 points. I started painting the armour on my Alter Noble last night. Sometimes I think it looks really good and other times I think it looks terrible. The model itself has some funny angles that are casting shadows and tricking my eyes into thinking I didn't paint some areas, so I might just be getting used to it. We'll see.

Spoony and I played a 1500 point 40k game this past weekend. Due to some terrible deployment decisions on my part he was wiping the floor with me and I ended up conceding at the end of the third turn; not exciting.

Running has been a bit of a drag this past week. After blazing through the first three weeks, my legs have felt a bit tired while running recently and I can still feel the fatigue when I bike to work in the mornings.

Total number of runs: 18
Total number of miles: 82.68
Total time: 10 hours, 13 minutes, 45 seconds

Sir Edmund Hillary, one half of the pair of men who were the first to summit Everest, died.

Today has not been a very good day.

I woke up feeling like I hadn't slept at all. That wore off on the ride to work, but it isn't generally a good sign. Despite having a lingering and overbearing feeling that I have a lot of work to do, I don't have anything to do at work. The stress of thinking I have things to do, without actually having anything to do (and therefore alleviate my stress) is making me very nervous.

I found out today that the woman in charge of moving our office ordered furniture in a color that David does not like. No one told her to do this, she went ahead and did it based off of some conversations that this office and her have had. I got to tell David. He wasn't happy. He's now trying to see if the order can be changed, and I'll probably end up giving him the final verdict.

I also forgot to schedule someone into a meeting that will probably have to be rescheduled as a result. Not usually a big deal, but it isn't sure isn't helping anything today.

This is probably the first bad day I've had at work. I feel tired and bored and unmotivated, and even though I don't think I've done anything very wrong (the big mistake was not my fault) I still feel like I've screwed up today.

Three weeks down:

Total number of runs: 15
Total number of miles: 70.34
Total time: 8 hours, 29 minutes, 09 seconds

This entire past week I felt phenomenal. Every time I went running I felt fast and strong and I was able to end each run with a good kick. Next week ends with an 11 miler which will be the longest run I have ever done in 12 years of running; that's exciting. Lisa and I are planning on running it together so hopefully it won't be too boring.

American Gladiators is the best show on television right now. The room mates and I watched the premiere last night and had such a great time that we're all going to watch the next episode tonight as well. Everything about it is ridiculous in the best way possible. If you're not watching then you're missing out.

These pictures are from a graveyard in New Orleans. I took them and my dad edited them.

After two weeks, the totals stand at:

Total number of runs: 11
Total number of miles: 50.76
Total time: 6 hours, 00 minutes, 27 seconds

I did a 9 mile run with my dad in Florida last week which was pretty rough. The running itself wasn't too bad, but after about an hour I was getting bored (we ran for another 30 minutes after that). Lisa suggests music to help break it up, but I always run too fast with music.

My relatives gave me 400 dollars for Christmas, and I'm planning on using it to equip myself as a fully functional climber. On my list of things to buy is a rope, a bunch of carabiners to make quickdraws from, a collection of slings in various lengths, a few long pieces of cord, and some more lockers for anchor building. I also need a new pair of shoes, but I'm most likely going to run out of money.

Laura and I saw Sweeny Todd last night. It was a good movie with a lot of good singing and blood.

The first week of marathon training is done. I ran 8 miles today with my dad, after doing 5 miles and going climbing yesterday with Kev. The run yesterday felt a bit rough and when I woke up this morning I was exhausted. My dad has the phrase 'courage to start, strength to finish' on his running ID tag and he encouraged me to get out today and run. I felt really good for almost all of the run so I'm glad he got my ass moving.

Total number of runs: 5
Total number of miles: 24.95
Total time: 3 hours, 9 minutes, 23 seconds

Climbing yesterday went really well. I've been to this gym a few times before and never really enjoyed myself, but yesterday I was on some really interesting V4's and V5's. There were a lot of really interesting heel hooks in these climbs, and a lot of stuff that required me to focus and use my core.

I preordered the Ork codex so I hope to have it on January 10th. I'm really excited to have an Ork army, and I've also been giving some thought to starting a small Imperial Guard army. I really like the Vostroyan models and I think that having a 500 - 1000 point army would be fun. My only concern is having to paint that many models, but if I break it all up with my Marines and Orks I think it is pretty manageable.

Marathon training has begun! The past three days have been icy and cold, but I have persevered and I'm feeling good about the whole thing. I'm going to be keeping some stats.

Total number of runs: 3
Total number of miles: 11.79
Total time: 1 hour, 41 minutes, 17 seconds

I am going home today after work, and tomorrow I have another 5 mile run followed by an 8 mile run on Sunday. That's a bit terrifying, since I haven't run more than 7 miles since I was in high school, but also quite exciting.

I finished my Glade Riders and mounted Noble last night. The riders look pretty good, but I'm very happy with the Noble; I think he is the best mini I have painted. His horse was incredibly frustrating to paint, but it looks passable.

Work has been pretty slow this week and I've spent a lot of time surfing the internets looking for diversion. There are a lot of MMA news sites I've been browsing, as well as various Warhammer sites.

The new Halo3 maps are fun, although I'm not thrilled with the 6v6, social format. Spoony and I mostly just dick around on them and I'm hoping they get more competitive when they enter full rotation on the ranked playlists.

I wanted to go on my third run of the week yesterday, but there was a huge snow storm in Boston that rolled in around 1pm and didn't let up until sometime after 8pm. In total, we got about 6 inches of snow and everything is now covered in a cold, wet, and heavy blanket of white.

The two runs I did take were 4 milers that felt very good. I can't recall what the first one was, but I know that the second one was done at an 8 minute mile pace.

Tonight Spoony and I are going to play poker with some of Dar's friends. I haven't played poker in a damn long time, so I anticipate this being an evening where I had a stranger a bunch of my money. The only reason I'm going to go is because it has also been a damn long time since I've seen Dar or Lauren (who is also rumored to be going).

Saturday Laura and I (and maybe Spoon) are going to see I am Legend, and then hopefully I'm going to work on my Warhammer table. Last night I put the basecoat on my last three Glade Riders, so I need to start working on the highlights and flesh to get them done for the end of December.

Laura and I making cookies.

The cookie army.

I've gone on two fantastic runs in the past few days. On Monday I went out for my 5+ mile run. It had snowed over the weekend, and Monday had seen more snow and rain until the late afternoon, so the sidewalks were icy and slushy. Combined with the bitter cold I wasn't terribly excited to get out and spend time running. But I dressed warmly and set out at a slow pace so as not to slip on the ice and it turned into a fantastic run. My clothes kept me warm and my pace kept my breathing easy. It ended up being a 50 minute run (10 minute miles or a 4:22 marathon) and I felt like I could have run the whole thing over.

Yesterday was another cold day, although thankfully most of the ice and slush had been cleared away. I had a 4 mile run planned and I wanted to take it a bit faster than Monday. I reached the 2 mile mark at about 17 minutes (8:30 miles) and felt so good that I picked up the pace to try and get a negative split on the way home. Apparently I was dead on my original pace, because I came home in almost exactly 34 minutes, which translates into about a 3:45 marathon. If I could train to run 8:30 minute miles for the marathon I would be very happy with my time.

After the run, I was so inspired by my success and feeling really good, so I sat down and polished off two of the Glade Riders I had sitting on my desk. I tried a few new things on them, including a less start highlighting scheme on their cloaks and some different techniques for painting the skin. I'm not sure how I feel about the cloaks, but the skin looks a lot better than my first tries (except the faces, which still need work). Overall I am happy with the paint, and they look good on the horses, but the models themselves don't look fantastic. The kits were a bit hard to assemble and these two riders (and probably the other four as well) are looking down, not forward. Oh well.

Laura, Spoony, Steve, Beth, and some other people went to a show on Tuesday night hosted by the Boston's alternative radio station WFNX (I assume this is what they are, I never listen to the radio unless I'm in Spoony's car). The show was a strange collection of bands and took place in a theater, which meant that we were sitting down the whole time.

The first band (whose name escapes me) was pretty good. They were tight and played some solid, if not terribly interesting songs. Mute Math was next. Their sound was definitely something I hadn't heard before, but they had a stage presence that I'm not sure I bought into. After Mute Math was Against Me! who were the reason I was there. They sounded really good, but the performance itself was not what I had hoped; they aren't a band you should see sitting down in a theater with a bunch of people who don't know the words. The penultimate band was The Cold War Kids, and apparently everyone was there to see them. I found their music incredibly boring and unoriginal (they sounded like Radiohead, OK Go, and Maroon Five at various points). Laura, Steve, and I spend most of their set identifying recycled drum and guitar parts and trying to figure out why this band was popular at all. Last to go up was Spoon, who is a very solid band. Despite this, I was ready to leave after The Cold War Kids and didn't really enjoy their set.

I am thinking about going for another quick run after work today, and I'm really excited for a Die Hard Christmas on Monday.

The photo is a bit dark, but these are the first two completed Glade Riders.

My parents come to Boston this weekend to hang out and see my new place. Spoony's parents joined my parents for dinner on Saturday night. The house got a good cleaning, Laura and Christina made two different lasagnas, salad, and cheese cake, and Spoony and I ran around town picking up things. The dinner was delicious and I think everyone had a good time, so I guess we won the dinner party.

The weather has become hostile to biking. There is a ton of very wet snow that means my ride to and from work is a freezing cold, soaking wet affair. I planning on running when I get home, so I don't think I'll be warm or dry until around 7:30pm tonight.

I went climbing at Metro yesterday afternoon but didn't have a very good day. We spent about 15 minutes in the cold at the T station waiting for the shuttle to pick us up and I didn't warm up very well, so I never found my stride. I was working on some cool V4's in the new cave but my arms weren't really into it.

I took my new jacket out for a test run (ha!) yesterday. It kept my torso phenomenally warm, but I forgot my gloves and my hands suffered. The ventilation zippers on the sides worked really well and I would fiddle with them to help regulate the temperature. I wasn't thrilled with how the Ipod pocket worked out; the Ipod bounced around and caused the left side of the jacket to rise and fall as I ran. It wasn't terrible but I was hoping for something a bit more stable. I might look into an arm holder for it, but I'm also not sold on the idea of running with an Ipod at all, so who knows.

I am not going to meet my 200 point target for this month. I've been distracted with video games and other things and couldn't get my Glade Riders and Noble painted. Not a huge deal, but I am a bit surprised that I couldn't get six models and six horses painted in a month when I managed to paint 18 models last month.

My two landspeeders arrived, and I have two Dreadnoughts in the mail which means that I legitimately have a 1500 point army in various stages of completion. I haven't played anything larger than 500 points with it (and nothing larger than 1000 points with any army) but I am excited to have the options. Once this gets itself assembled and painted I would like to expand it further with some terminators and an assault squad.

I think Spoony is going to drive me to the pet store tonight and hopefully they'll have a tank that I like.

Thanksgiving was a bunch of fun. I really enjoyed going home and relaxing (although I didn't sleep late on any of the days I was there) and it was nice to see some people I haven't seen in a while.

The morning of Thanksgiving I woke up early to run a 5k. Several weeks ago I had big plans for this race, but I have only been training twice a week so my expectations were lowered. I was pretty surprised to run an 18:43 (results posted here) and finish 31 out of over 1100 people. My calves were on fire for the rest of the weekend, but I was very happy with how I ran.

On Saturday night I hung out with some friends from high school and several people I would rather have never seen again. Across the street, my parents were attending a party of their own. When I discovered that my old cross country coach was there, my sister and I headed over. I had been drinking for several hours at this point and it was very weird to be surrounded by a bunch of semi-intoxicated adults in my semi-intoxicated state. Everything turned out fine and I had a lot of fun but it was a very odd experience.

While home I came across my old fish tank and I decided to get back into keeping fish. Currently I am planning to have a 10 gallon tank in my room and putting in a group of 6 Neon Tetras. I might add a single larger fish but the jury is still out on that one. I want to have a large rock or piece of wood in the center of the tank a put several plants in the corners and along the back.

Last night was Laura's long awaited 21st birthday. Her and I went out to a very expensive and pretty good dinner at Eastern Standard. I had meat loaf that tasted a bit too much like sausage and mashed potatoes that were phenomenal. Laura had scallops that looked pretty good, but I didn't try them because I'm not so much a seafood fan. We both ordered drinks but our waiter didn't card either one of us, which was weird.

The celebration proper started at 9pm at Crossroads. About 15 people trickled in and out through the course of the evening to contribute to the festivities. Laura got good and drunk, but not nearly enough to ruin the night. All in all it was a very successful day of celebrations.

I had some high hopes for the Turkey Trot on Thursday, but I don't think anything much is going to come out of it. Come race day I won't have run in over a week, and my training was typically less than 10 miles a week over two days of running. I'm going to see what happens but I've lowered my expectations considerably.

Many girls.

Mostly boys.

We stumble home.

Pictures from the comp last weekend.

Team Barecca

The arena

Getting this problem on my second try (beta stolen from Mike)

Heel hooking my way to the top. I can't imagine what my next move was, although I remember it working out really well.

At some point recently I became a V4 climber. I'm not sure when or how it happened but it is pretty damn cool. There wasn't a single V4 at Metro yesterday that I couldn't figure out in a few tries.

Today is Laura's 21st birthday and there are a whole bunch of people going to Crossroads to celebrate. After work her and I are going to Eastern Standard for dinner. Their menu looks expensive but tasty, so we'll have a good solid dinner before the festivities.

Spoony and I finally played some 40k this weekend. It was a 550 point cleanse on our small coffee table. In the first round I took out his dreadnought and a plasma cannon gunner. Over the next few turns the squad that killed the dread trounced one of his squads in close combat (accounting for 6 marines and losing none) while his commander proceeded to chew through 15 of my marines (including my commander). It came down to my 8 man tactical squad against his commander and 3 marines. Fortunatley I had put two wounds on his commander in earlier combats, so when the final showdown happened my guys knocked off his final wound before he could decimate them with a power fist. A very fun game that came down to the wire and really highlighted the fact that we need a larget table to play on.

Barry Bonds might actually be in trouble. Not for using steroids, but for perjury. I'm happy either way; him owning the home run record is an embarrassment to the sport of baseball.

This Space Marine army is phenomenal. The painting makes it look very unified and complete, and I love the concept behind it; the idea of tons of terminators appearing and being terrifying is an image that I have had since I started this hobby. I can imagine it being very difficult to play, but I applaud whoever fielded it for being adventurous and taking a fresh look at the list.

Last night a bunch of people went to the Public House to celebrate Beth taking the GRE's and Lisa running a marathon. There were lots of people there who I haven't seen in a while and the beer was fantastic. Lisa and I got each other pumped to run Boston in April, so now I need to get some warm clothes so I don't die in training.

Tim successfully defended his thesis last week so a bunch of people went on a bar crawl through Cambridge to celebrate. Tim had a fantastic time (which was the point), but everyone else had one too. It felt good to let go and have a really exciting, really drunk evening with a lot of people that I don't see a lot anymore. I'm going to miss Tim, but this was a very solid send off effort.

In some bizarre news, I lost one of my earrings that night. I told Cassie that her earrings were pretty and that I wanted to wear them. I took one of mine out and tried to put it in my mouth (I do this a lot so it isn't as weird as it sounds) but I missed and it fell on the floor. Obviously I was unable to find it, so I've been wearing a straw in my ear since then. There is a set of dark blue, 6ga plugs in the mail right now.

After the fun of Friday night I woke up early and made my way to Metro (with a substantial amount of Team Barreca) to compete in the Mammut-EMS Bouldering Championships. I wasn't in the championship part, but there was an amateur comp as well. I had never competed before so I was excited to see what happened. The climbs were fantastic, but the atmosphere was very chaotic and poorly run, which detracted a bit from the fun. I sent three V4's and two V3's, which put me in fourth place in the beginner division (Mike took second). I know I could have done better, which is exciting considering I've only been climbing for two years. The results are posted here.

After the comp was over, they cleared out the gym to set routes for the pro comp. We all came back to the gym and they had set it up like a theater with spot lights on the climbs. The pros (both men and women) were phenomenal. The setters had designed the routes to be gimmicky so climbers were forced to do crowd friendly moves; there was a lot of cheering and amazing climbing going on.

Sunday was a day off. Laura and I lounged around all day before going to see the RX Bandits at night. The Bandits are my favorite band and I was very psyched to see them play, but overall I was disappointed. They only played one song off of my favorite album (Progress) and focused a lot on their new album (of which I am less of a fan). Since they lost Steve Borth it sounds like their horn section is lacking something, which makes sense because they are. I also felt like the sound quality was not very good and it made a lot of their songs sound like sludge. It was a good show, but not what I was hoping it would be.

I had the day off on Monday and used it to do a variety of things I had been meaning to do. I had a brisk but enjoyable run in the daylight, which was something I haven't done in several weeks. I also managed to get paint on five of my six Wood Elf horses. I'm not terribly excited about any of them, but I am learning a lot each time I do it; hopefully I'll be able to apply it to something later. After the horses I assembled my two new crisis suits. They look very dynamic and even unpainted put my old (and painted) suits to shame. Finally, I bought some wonderfully tight black jeans.

Photos from the Mammut-EMS Bouldering Championships
MetroRock - November 2007

Sydney McNair sending Women's #4

Vasya Vorotnikov on Men's #1 or #2
a month or so ago he sent Jaws 2, a 5.15b at Rumney (I was there that day)

Paul Robinson on Men's #4
he would go on to win the comp and the tour

Ryan Olson sending Men's #3
he was the first person to send this (of two)
Laura and I are visible in the crowd just behind the man in pink near the middle left

Last night, on my way home from Laura's, I fell off of my bike and hurt my left knee. I was passing the Heath St. T stop and there was a bunch of construction on my side of the street that was pushing traffic into the middle of the street. The barriers were moving me closer and closer to the T tracks, but I would have been fine had there not been a police officer standing in the only usable bit of road left. He looked me right in the eye, but wouldn't move out of my way; I was forced to try and jump the T tracks immediately on my left. It didn't work, and my front wheel dropped into the tracks and I wiped out on the cop's feet.

Initially he was concerned about my safety, but when I told him he was in the way and asked him not to stand here, he started to get angry. He called me 'son' a lot, and went on about how he was just doing his job and making sure I didn't fall into the very well lit, very well marked hole the construction workers had dug. I told him to have a good night and rode home.

Now my knee hurts a lot and feels unstable. I didn't feel any pain when it happened, but I have become fixated on the possibility that I tore my ACL. In rational thinking world, there wasn't any twisting, no pain when I fell, and really no reason at all for me to think that. Obviously, with two of those monsters under my belt and no desire to repeat for a third time, I'm being a bit less than rational. Fucking dumbass cop.

Before that wonderfulness, I went for a run. For some reason I decided to really run it hard, and ended up doing 4 miles in 27 minutes (that turns into 6:45 miles). It felt like I was running a lot harder than that, although I may have been going slower at the beginning and much faster towards the end. I would like to be able to run a sub 18 minute 5k this Thanksgiving, which means I'm going to need to be able to run 3 miles faster than 6 minute pace.

Last time I talked about the Olympic marathon trials. It was an early race and when it was over I turned it off and made breakfast, so I didn't lean that one of the runners had died on the course. Apparently, Ryan Shay went into cardiac arrest around the 5.5 mile mark and collapsed on the course. What a tragic ending to what looked like a fantastic triumph for American runners.
New York Times article

The other night I spent some time playing with my Space Marines. I had recently bought a tactical squad off of Ebay and I assembled the models. They turned out very well since I spent a lot of time being careful and deliberate, instead of rushing through like I usually do. One of them I turned into a commander for the army, and his model is one of the cooler poses I have come up with. I also experimented with using cork on the bases and I think it turned out very well.

I am leaving work early today to watch Tim defend his doctoral thesis. I've never been to one of these but I thought it would be fun to watch and support Tim. After that I am going to the comic shop and then home to decide if I want to test out my knee on a run or not.