Monday, 01 September 2008

• Gravity Rides Everything

  I am so freaking impressionable.  Depending on what TV show I watched last, I sometimes want to either be an Ice Road Trucker or a particle physicist.  I have a thirst for learning, and I also love these sort of documentary reality shows.
  
  Like HBO's Hard Knocks with the Dallas Cowboys training camp was/is incredible.  Having it on demand makes my beastly monthly cable bill worth it.  The Cowboys rule and shows about the Cowboys rule.
  
  And who knew shows about dudes driving 18-wheelers would be so cool.  I watched Ice Road Truckers all day yesterday.  Well executed television can make anything awesome.
  
  
  
  I love shows about football teams, lemurs, ice road truckers, splitting the atom, meerkats, whatever.  Everything is interesting.
  
  EXCEPT being a chemical engineer.  In fact, to my knowledge there are no shows or documentaries about my profession.  Why? Because it's boring and no one really cares.  So you designed some piece of equipment? Big deal.  These guys delivered the equipment on a truck over a frozen lake. 
  
  They should make a show about my life sitting in a cube and doing things that in the long run don't really matter.  They can call it "Why Hasn't This Guy Commited Suicide Yet?"
  
  That's an exaggeration for effect.  Allegedly.  It's not really that bad.  Stay in school kids.  Study chemical engineering.  You can come work with me. 
  
  Or become a lumberjack because it's probably 10 times better ERRRR just as good ERRR worse than my excellent career choice. 
  
  I should have studied string theory.  Nothing on these science shows ever interests me as much as stuff about atoms and the origin of the universe and whatnot.  Like, I hate medical shows.  So you saved an old person?  Great they'll be dead in like 10 minutes anyway.  But you found a Higgs boson? There, you have something.
  
  Some may argue that medical advances are far more important than football or fishing for crabs, but my counterargument is that they are far more boring. 
  
  The 10K went well, but it's obvious to myself that I have some work to do.  First of all, I need to step up my trianing regimine alot to prepare for the October 26th half-marathon.  And I probably ate too much trail mix and power bars the day of the race. 
  
  First of all, the topography of this race was so much harder than my first 10K.  I thought I was at Hill-Fest '98.  If you know Austin, you know it's hilly on campus and downtown.  And that's what this race did - climb hills.  Going downhill sucks too.  It's not like you're on a bike where it means you can just sit there and go fast.  You have to slow yourself down.  It was pretty hot out there too.
  
  But, all in all, I think I did allright.  In fact, my first 3 miles was pretty blazing.  But then I kinda smacked into a wall.  And it started to suck.  I had some strong urges to walk - especially when the losers around me would drop like flies - but I knew I would never forgive myself. 
  
  I couldn't come on Xanga and be like - yeah it was a fun race but I had to stop to walk.  And I couldn't tell my friends, family, and coworkers that either.  And I can't lie because I don't lie.  And I don't hold back the truth either.  Moral: I kept running, running.  Albeit, at an increasingly slowing pace.  I definitely didn't have any finishing energy kick left like I did at my first nice, rainy, cool, not as hilly 10K.  You can quantify the difference and difficulty because the winning times in this race were longer than my first race (+48 secs men, +1:48 women). 
  
  So I don't feel so bad about not matching my first time.  I was close enough.  And I'm sure my 3 mile split was alot faster this time.  In fact, I probably misspaced myself pretty badly judging by it.
  
  Here are some statistics etc.
  
  

  The moral of this chart is that my pace started out high, then went low, then went a little higher.  All their stupid stats are in metric but the cliff notes version is that my first part of the race was at like a 7 minute 30 second per mile pace but then I ended up at like an 8 minute 40 second pace.
  
  
  
  I came in 1190th place.  Not bad out of the 13,000 or so there. Notice Lance Armstrong came in 6th. 
  
  If you want to look at the results more closely than go to http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/humanrace/leaderboard.jsp and type in some people's names.
  
  Fact: And yes, Lance Armstrong and Matthew McConaughey were both there.  And were like 100 yards ahead of me to start the race.  They both beat me though.
  
  But it's cool.  I'll start training more now.  And I resolve not to drink any alcohol before the half-marathon.  Or maybe once because I'm supposed to go to a wedding and going to a wedding and not drinking anything is tantamount to the Chinese water torture.

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