Closure

We need to talk. I don’t think this blogger/reader relationship is going to work out. I mean, I do all of the work. You guys do nothing. NOTHING! I’m sorry to be so blunt with you, but I really think we should take a break. As it’s been two and a half months since I last posted I’m going to assume that most of you saw this coming.

I really wanted to contact ESPN and have them put on a one hour special where I talked about the process that I went through to come to this decision, but then I remembered that even I’m not that arrogant.

I’m writing this post because I feel like I owe you all an explanation as to why I’m quitting blogging going on hiatus. First of all, I DON’T owe you an explanation, but you certainly deserve one. I simply haven’t felt like writing lately. It’s a short explanation but it’s all you’re getting. I knew that it was time to call it quits when I was recently offered a free pair of expensive, custom-made running shoes in exchange for a review and I thought to myself “yeah, but that would mean I would have to sit down and write something.” Wait a second... I should have used the time I spent to write this farewell post to write about the free shoes! I can’t believe I missed out on free shoes just because I felt guilted into writing this stupid post for YOU people! You all owe me a free pair of shoes!

In all seriousness, thank you all for taking the time to read and comment on my sarcasm riddled ramblings, I am humbled and flattered that so many of you have enjoyed reading what I have to say. I received a tremendous amount of enjoyment from entertaining you and I want to express my thanks to every single one of you by sending you a $5 gift certificate for the Garmin online store. I can’t afford to express my thanks that way, but I want to. Anyway, I don’t honestly believe that I’ll be able to permanently quit blogging so there’s a pretty good chance that I’ll be back at it again at some point in the future. Whether that means a couple of months or a couple of years is anybody’s guess.

I’ve received several dozen offers (read: one) to do guest posts at other running blogs so I may show up elsewhere from time to time and if I ever make a triumphal return to full time blogging I’ll be sure to announce it here at Half-Fast (in the event that I start a different blog) so go ahead and keep Half-Fast in your reader if you want to find me again. Or you could pay attention to any CNN breaking news updates as my return to the blogiverse is sure to be headline news. Or you could follow me on twitter @IanAHunter. I don’t tweet much because I can’t seem to condense my thoughts to 140 characters. I’m just so complex, you see.

Many, many, many thanks to all of you for reading, I simply cannot express how appreciative I am. (Inability to express oneself is always a winning formula for a blog!)

Oh, one last thing, I promise to put up a post if Candis ever beats me in a footrace, since I know that many of you have just been eagerly awaiting that day.

Ian Hunter (the artist formerly known as Vanilla)

BB10k Race Report

I was successful on Monday in my continuing quest to get slower and slower, posting a time that was slower even than some of my training runs leading up to the Bolder Boulder. Awesome! Candis meanwhile continues to get faster, although not quite fast enough... yet. I ran a 54:39 and Candis posted a 55:56 (a 3 minute PR).

In typical banker/obsessed runner fashion I decided to use an excel spreadsheet to break down our 10k results over the last 5 years. Then I graphed them to see if there were any interesting trends... I really wish I hadn’t.

I wonder what will happen next year at the Bolder Boulder? I’m sure you’ve all got lots of crazy ideas floating around your heads about what might happen at next years race and you’re welcome to put those in the comments if you want, but I’m only going to make you eat your words when I triumph again next year.

The next potential race on our schedule is the Boulder Half Marathon. We’ve never done it before and have heard some good things about it. This past weekend we also heard a couple of bad things about it, so if any of you have run it or have any input to share we’d certainly appreciate it.

Happy Memorial Day!

It was hot at the Bolder Boulder today, some people might refer to that as a "nice day" or "perfect weather" or "beautiful blue skies" but to me it was just hot. Hot and annoying.

Our times were 55:56 and 54:39 or something like that. I'll have a more detailed update tomorrow, but right now we're off to a friends house for some beer, BBQ and then more beer. Have a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day!

Long Overdue Update

Candis and I are running the Bolder Boulder 10k on Memorial Day. The Bolder Boulder organizers saw fit to place us in the ED wave which is incredibly unfortunate and not at all allegorical. My disco stick is just fine thankyouverymuch, I’ll prove it to you right now! Anyway, if you’re running on Monday stop by section 204 after the race and say hello, if you’re lucky I’ll prove it to you in person. I kid, I kid I’m totally aware of what’s socially acceptable when meeting someone for the first time.

Site News
Is it just me or does it feel like this blog is writhing in its death throes? It’s not that I haven’t been running, hell it’s not even that I don’t have any good material. I’ve got a file full of half written posts and ideas that would last me a couple of months. I just don’t feel like writing anymore. Part of that is because I’ve been busier at work lately (the economy won’t flush itself down the drain you know, it takes hard work to make it happen). It used to be that even when I didn’t feel like writing I would sit down and force myself to put a post up for consistency’s sake. And if I couldn’t find time at work to throw a post up then I’d go home and write a post in the evening so that I could throw it up the next morning like a supermodel after a night out at a seafood buffet. That’s a terrible analogy; I don’t think supermodels eat at buffets do they?

But fear not. I’m not quitting the blog. I’ll soldier on, posting when the urge strikes or when my guilt level rises to an intolerable level or when someone offers me free stuff to review. It pains me to see my blog in this run-down, neglected state and part of me just wants to put it out of its misery but I think I’d miss being a part of the online running community too much, even though I’m an admittedly diminutive part of it at this point. Maybe the inspiration will strike again someday and I’ll get back to writing on a regular basis but for now you’re just going to have to put up with erratic posts, long periods of silence and awkward apologies that would make George Michael Bluth uncomfortable.

I realize that it’s unrealistic to expect people to continue to read a blog that only updates once or twice a month. Eventually you’ll lose interest because there’s just not enough material for you to care about. I think that was one of the things that drew me to posting at CRN. I was only responsible for one or two posts a month, but there were a host of other writers that were also putting posts up so the blog didn’t lack consistency. Minimum input, maximum exposure. I’m all about maximum exposure.

Finally, I’ve turned on comment moderation for posts that are more than five days old because apparently my comments section is a great place to advertise pornographic sites.

I’m going to leave again for a few days, but you kids behave while Daddy’s out of town. I’ll try to get a race report up sometime next week... or whenever. Have a great 3 day weekend!

You want the Proof?

You can’t handle the proof! I guess it was so out of the question that I would win an age group award that some of you wanted proof. Well here is a picture of Candis and I posing with our medals. Candis’ medal is attached to a white ribbon (signifying 3rd place) and mine of course has a blue ribbon because it’s a 1st place medal. Never mind that Candis’ medal is for overall female and mine is an age group award, all that matters is one of them is 1st place (ME!) and one of them is 3rd place. Better yet, the inscription on the back of each medal does not list whether it was an age group or overall award so a few years down the road when we’ve long forgotten about this race the medals will tell a different story.

Question for you readers who have more experience with winning medals: Is it customary to eliminate the top 3 overall winners (male and female) from the age group awards? Candis also took 2nd in her age group and was hoping to take two medals home but was disappointed to find out that she wasn’t eligible as the 3rd overall woman.

Also, if that picture isn’t enough proof for you then you can view the Hawk Hustle 5k results online. Have you ever seen a 5k with such a slow winning time? (21:27 for those of you who, like me, are too lazy to follow the link and see for yourselves.)

Finally, I leave you with a completely random non-running related video. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

I’m a WINNER!

Guess which idiot blogger with a penchant for (unnecessary) parentheses and the Caps Lock key just won his age group at a local 5k this weekend? (((THIS GUY!!)))

That’s right folks, I am the proud new owner of a 1st Place medal in the Male 30 - 39 division. Moreover, Candis is the proud new owner of a 3rd Place medal in the Overall Female category. Yes, it was a small race, why do you ask?

Now that I’ve ruined the ending of this story, let me back up and start at the beginning. Late last week we discovered that Horizon High School was hosting the Hawk Hustle 5k to benefit their athletics department and we decided to support them and signed up at the last minute. One of the main selling points of this race was the fact that the high school is located no more than a quarter mile from our house and the race was being run on the paths that Candis and I run on regularly. With the race being so close we were able to sleep in until 8 o’clock on Saturday morning. I think that’s the latest I’ve ever been able to get up on a race morning. Candis went over to the school and brought back our bibs while I brewed us some coffee and took care of my other morning business.

As the Chik-fil-A cow fumbled with the starter’s pistol everyone seemed to shy away from being at the front of the starting crowd so I stepped up and toed the line. The cow finally figured out a way to fire the pistol without breaking character and we were off. I was feeling good and actually ran with the lead pack for about a half a mile, then I looked at my Garmin and noticed that we were at a 6:50 pace and I had to slow down. I ended up finishing 12th out of 103 people and of course, 1st in my age group. And before you ask, no I wasn’t the only person in my age group, there were 8 other guys racing in the 30 - 39 division. Candis finished about a minute and a half behind me as the 3rd overall woman and was 2nd in her age group.

My time was 26:03 which is a lot slower than I would have liked even taking into account that the course was actually 3.25 miles. Normally I’d be disappointed with a time like that since it seems to confirm that I’ve hit a plateau if not a downward trend, but I’m still beaming from finally winning an age group award. It was all that I hoped it would be! What can I say, sometimes the triumphs come when you least expect them.

Alright, fess up! Which one of you is this?

No question in my mind that this is one of my readers so which one of you wants to cop to it.

I have to give props to the people on either side of her for not even giving her a quizzical look. I don’t think a sharp backhand would have been out of order given the circumstances. I mean, I didn’t go to law school or anything but I did take one Intro to Business Law class in college and I’m pretty sure that you can’t be charged with assault if someone’s acting that stupid. They’re basically asking for it.

Also, a quick pointer for all three of those people in the video; you guys know that those things go faster than that, right? Mmmkay, just checking.

Oh, and sorry about that song playing in the background of the video. You should have muted your speakers if you didn’t want that stuck in your head all day, and I should have mentioned this in the paragraph above the video but if I have to suffer, you do too.

Product Review: Belkin Sports Armband for iPhone

I know what you’re thinking: “How does a guy who is only averaging six posts a month keep getting free stuff to review?” It’s quite simple really. I may not write a lot but I write good. It’s about quality over quantity. No? Not buying it? Yeah, me either but I really don’t have any other explanation as to why I continue to get free stuff. You don’t question the gravy train, you just keep riding it until you’re plump with so many free products and shoes and assorted schwag that you begin to sweat them from your very pores.

A number of weeks ago I was contacted by a wonderful individual named Natalie who was offering to send me the Belkin DualFit Sports Armband (for iPhone). I could immediately tell from the e-mail that Natalie was a wonderful person when she said that she wanted to give me a product to review. That’s pretty much all it takes for me to think that you’re a wonderful person, which explains why I think so little of so many of you dear readers. Anyway, Natalie sent me the Armband and I tested it out.

Here are my findings:
It works! It holds my iPhone securely on my arm, but not so securely as to be uncomfortable. The plastic screen allows me to use my iPhone without taking the phone out of the Armband, this is important for those times I want to skip a song in my playlist or catch up on some e-mail correspondence during my runs. It even has a hole in the bottom of the armband so that I can charge or sync the phone without taking it out of the armband. I have no idea why I’d want to do that, but it’s good to know that I can. The only downside to the Belkin DualFit Sports Armband that I could find was that it was such a tight fit that I had to take my iPhone out of its protective case to put it in the armband. What if I drop it in between the case and the armband? I would be doomed! Other than that though, the armband was great and I suppose it has to be a tight fit so that the iPhone doesn’t slip out easily while you’re running. In conclusion, (cheesy endorsement coming...) I suggest that you all head on over to MobileFun for all of your iPhone accessories and for whatever else they sell there, I’m sure it’s all good.

Be sure to click on the links in this post so that wonderful Natalie thinks that giving me a free Belkin Armband was worth it, because if she doesn’t then I won’t keep getting free stuff to review and then how will I make you all jealous of me if I don’t have free stuff to review? Answer: With my dashing good looks and devilish charm, that’s how... but I’d still like the free stuff to go along with it.

The Long Con

Yesterday I concluded a two part April Fools’ Day joke. After posting an April Fools’ day joke the previous two years I knew that some of you might suspect something and needed a way to throw you off the scent. I came up with the idea of the multi-day fool a couple of years ago when another blog I read (Cynical Dad) pulled it off to perfection with a 3 day story, concluding on April 1st. (You see how I both credited the original source AND took credit for the idea in that last sentence? There’s a fine line between Ian and genius and I just blurred it.) However, three days of foolery sounded like a lot of work so naturally I cut it down to two, that’s the way I roll here at Half-Fast. (It’s still cool to say “that’s how I roll,” right?)

As with any good lie, large portions of the story were true. In fact, everything I wrote in Act 1 was true, and a large part of Act 2 was true. I’ve gone back through yesterday’s post and changed the text color to red on any part that was NOT true, but if you’re too lazy to re-read it I’ll give a quick summation. The kid and most of his antics were real, although I may have over-emphasized how annoying he was. I never actually said anything to the kid but I did roll my eyes and sigh a lot to express my annoyance like the mature adult that I am. After ten minutes in the fitness center the kid left and never came back, and I never met his father and I’ve still never fallen off a treadmill and I NEVER WILL! Also, I have no idea how I will follow this up next year. Perhaps I’ll fool you all by confessing to some heinous thing that I did and telling you on April 1st, but the joke will be that it’s all true and no one will believe me. Gotcha! Or maybe I’ll make up a funny April Fools’ story, but post it on March 1st when no one’s expecting it. Oh, that’s a good one. ZING!!

A lot of people hate April Fools’ Day, not me, I love it. I’m suspicious of everything on April 1st. “Well I have a green light, but maybe this is an elaborate joke and we all have a green light? I should just sit here so I don’t look like a fool.” I cannot be had, do you hear me? OK, occasionally someone gets me and I love it even more when that happens. Well played, good sir.

Yesterday my favorite running related pranks were the Boston Marathon lowering their qualifying times and Gu adding some delicious new flavors recapped here by Steve. Liver ‘n’ Onions anyone? My least favorite one was Xenia’s since it was posted before mine and alerted some of you to what I was doing.

UPDATE: According to Mike at Running Is Funny the Boston Marathon pulled no such prank. Apparently it was a fake site that had everyone up in arms over the new lower qualifying times and the Boston Athletic Association is none to thrilled and looking to take legal action.

Get off my treadmill! Act 2

Where were we? Oh yes, we ended Act1 (read it here if you missed it) with me on the verge of making an ass of myself.

I was a couple of miles into my run when I heard the door to the fitness center open. I quickly grabbed the remote and switched off the Will and Grace re-run that I was watching in favor of ESPN. Grrrrrr sports! In walked my little friend and I could tell that he was ready for another workout because he was still wearing his workout jeans. He spotted me on the treadmill and was visibly disappointed. After standing there watching me for a few seconds he looked at the other exercise equipment in the room, presumably to determine which would be best for some high intensity screwing around.

The elliptical was the winner, or perhaps the loser if you’re looking at it from the elliptical’s point of view. He climbed on and started exercising, constantly leaning over to get a look at how fast I was going and attempting to match my pace. I was smack in the middle of an interval and had the speed set at 8mph (don’t laugh, that’s interval speed for me). I immediately decided that I would keep going at that speed until he stopped and fortunately for me he was tuckered out after about a minute. At this point he turned on the TV in front of the elliptical and cranked the volume up until it was loud enough to drown out my TV.

Next he stood with both of his feet on one of the eliptical’s paddles and began rowing himself up and down like a piston, a chubby piston. At this point I was getting a little agitated. He was no longer watching the TV but still had the volume cranked up so I asked him if he’d mind turning off the TV if he wasn’t watching it. He turned and walked away from me, completely ignoring me as if he was my own child. It was just as annoying when he did it as it is when they do it.

At this point he was just trying to irritate me. He took the dumbbells off the rack and started spinning them around at arm’s length as fast as he could, then left them lying on the floor. He stood behind my treadmill and imitated me running. I know this because as with most fitness centers, this one had a large mirror in front of the treadmill. And that’s when I lost it. I don’t know why that kind of thing gets my blood boiling so quickly but it’s happened before. I hopped off the treadmill, turned to face him and yelled at him. Yelled at him, at a kid. I’m not even going to tell you what I said because I’m pretty ashamed of myself for having said it. It was a stupid thing to do and I’m not proud of it, but the kid left quickly so it was at least effective.

Moments later I was running on the treadmill again when the kid walked back in followed by his father. His big, angry father. You might have deduced this from my race pictures but I’m not exactly a big guy. I’m all of 5’5” soaking wet (and bone dry since being soaking wet doesn’t make you any taller). I was terrified that this guy was going to crush me and in my haste to get off the treadmill and face him I got crossed up and ended up falling like a sack of potatoes onto the moving surface where I was promptly ejected off the back. My right forearm was throbbing like it was broken and I don’t even know what I hit it on (it’s not broken by the way, I’m just a wuss). The kid’s dad moved towards me quickly and with my adrenaline rushing I was sure that he meant to harm me. With my left arm caught awkwardly underneath me and my right arm in pain I did the first thing that I could think of to protect myself; I lifted my foot up to fend off Gigantor, who was now looming over me. He immediately grabbed a hold of my ankle with his enormous paw and started pulling... pulling on my leg... just like I’m pulling yours! April Fool’s suckers! I can’t believe you didn’t see that coming. Or maybe you did, bully for you. Let this be a lesson to you not to believe anything you read today.

Get off my treadmill! Act 1

This is a two part story because it got kind of long when I was writing it and I was incapable of editing it down, a sure sign of a good writer.

As you know from my previous post I was in South Dakota last week for a little R & R but I packed some workout clothes so that I could squeeze in some running. The hotel website promised a fitness center, which if you travel a lot you know can be hit or miss. In this case the fitness center was a standard hotel room which had been filled with as much exercise equipment as they could squeeze in there along with a few TVs. It consisted of a treadmill, an elliptical, a recumbent bike (who uses those things?) a small sit up bench, a rack of dumbbells and a rack of towels. Frankly, I was happy with the set up as I never know what to expect when I’m at a hotel. My only concern with just one treadmill was that someone else would be using it when I was ready to run, it was a concern that proved to be valid.

On Friday morning we were on our way back from breakfast when I decided to stop by the “fitness center” to see if anyone was using the treadmill. If not, I planned to rush back to the room, change into workout clothes and then go claim the treadmill for a few quick miles. (Yes, “quick” should have probably been in quotes too.) As I entered the room I could hear the familiar thud of footsteps on a treadmill. Crap. Sure enough someone was using it, however that someone was a slightly chubby kid who I was sure was just screwing around and not actually working out. My assumption was not based on his weight but on the fact that he was running on the treadmill barefoot and in jeans. Jeans! As I left the fitness center I couldn’t help but notice that the sign on the door said “Under 18 must be accompanied by an adult” and I’m guessing this kid was roughly 8 years shy.

As I was changing back in our room I contemplated what to do if the kid was still on my treadmill when I got back down there. I figured my options were: 1. Anonymous tip to hotel security that a minor was using the fitness center unsupervised. 2. Go and use the elliptical while rolling my eyes and making disapproving faces at the kid until he felt uncomfortable enough to leave. 3. Be mature and say something along the lines of “Hey if you’re not really using the treadmill do you mind if I get in a few miles?” Mature and I don’t often get put in the same sentence like that though so I wasn’t going with option 3 and option 1 was too much of a prick thing to do, even for me so I settled on option number 2.

I walked back down to the fitness center practicing my disapproving stares and disgusted sighs only to find that the kid had already left. I have to admit I was a little disappointed that I was not going to get to use my new battery of expressions, but resolved to use some of my best ones on my family during the remainder of the trip. (I’m such a joy to be around!) My disappointment was short-lived however as the kid soon returned - without adult supervision!!!

I’ll post Act 2 in a little while, wherein the kid returns and makes an ass of himself, I respond by making an ass of myself and in general everyone’s an ass. It was not my finest moment.

I’m Back

What do you mean you didn’t notice that I was gone? You mean to tell me that you don’t hang on my every word? You don’t sit there helplessly staring at the computer screen waiting for a Half-Fast post, completely unable to do anything productive until you’ve heard what I have to say? I am deeply offended.

As you may have guessed from the picture above, my family and I spent most of last week in South Dakota admiring mountain carvings and buying up as much of South Dakota’s supply of polished rocks as my children’s little hands could carry. I tried to talk them out of the polished rocks but they had their own money to spend and when you’re six years old bagfuls of polished rocks sound like a wise investment. I would have told you all that I was going to be gone but I really thought that I was going to find time to post while I was away. Honestly I did have the time to post but just didn’t feel like it, plus I’ve got a really good story to tell you that deserves my full attention and a half-fast post from a hotel room just wouldn’t do it justice. I’ll get to the story tomorrow but for now just know that we had a good trip. We visited Mount Rushmore (very impressive) and Crazy Horse (less impressive, at least for now) and did you know that they carve those mountains with dynamite? I cannot begin to tell you how disappointed I was to learn that those are not natural rock formations! We also spent a lot of time at our hotel pool, which the kids loved because it had a waterslide. I totally owned that waterslide. I was like the German luge team at the Olympics. I would get to the top and grab the handle bar above the slide entrance, then I would rock back and forth counting out “eins, zwei, drei” and then I would fling my body down the tube without a thought for my own personal safety. That’s how you have to do it if you want to be the best in the world. The key to riding a waterslide is reducing your friction on the slide so you have to arch up and ride down on your shoulder blades and heels. None of the other kids were achieving the dangerous kind of speeds that I was or creating even one tenth of splash at the bottom that I was. They just could not match my derring-do. Candis and I were both so happy that the hotel had a water slide, you know, for the kids.