Running for Greg

***THIS WILL STAY UP TOP UNTIL THE MARATHON***A friend of friend was killed in Iraq in December 2005. My friend Tom speaks so very highly of his friend Greg and the type of person he was. This year Tom will be running in his first marathon to honor the memory of his dear friend. Tom's goal is to raise as much money as possible of which all will be donated to the Gregory R. Wright Jr. Memorial VMI Scholarship Fund. This scholarship was created by Greg's family and friends as a way to honor his memory and the life he gave in defense of our country. The scholarship is given out to an outstanding individual who best exemplies Greg's passion for life and determination to defend our country.You can learn more about Greg by going to either the scholarship site or to Tom's site. Donations can be made electronically via PayPal on Tom's site.I am thankful every day for the sacrifices these soldiers make. I am thankful that my loved ones are safe. I pray for the safety of all who who serve. I understand your sacrifice and commitment. You are all truly inspirational. Thank you.

I'm Engaged!!

I'm very happy to announce that on Saturday, Feb 17th, I asked my girlfriend of a year to marry me, and thankfully, she said YES! We had a romantic dinner at the place we had our first date at...on our one year anniversary. I'd planned the event for a couple weeks, asking her parents for their blessing, and enlisting her sister's help to make my fiance's favorite desert at her parents house for after the dinner. It's amazing that I was able to keep it a secret from her for so long (she's a regular Sherlock Holmes).

No date for the wedding day set as of yet, but we're trying to work out a destination wedding somewhere in the Caribbean around the end of September '07. More on that soon...

Change of course...

Last couple months have been a blur...between holidays and going back to work after a year hiatus as a full time grad student, I've been pretty busy of late. Here's an update.

- Xmas with GF in MA with her family...crazy, fun and excellent. Her fam is great and I was fortunate to be a part of their family traditions.
- Post Xmas in NC w/ my folks and Uncle D/Aunt K. Had a wonderful time shopping, video gaming, and of course...EATING.
- NYE in DC with COL/Jill, Chewy/Alissa (and Teag), Me and my GF. Hit the DC sights and had a lot of fun catching up. The Hairy One dominated all challengers in Ping Pong.
- 5Jan07; back to work...Jan-Mar, will be teaching 4-6hrs/day and studying the rest.
- Workouts- back into a steady routine, consistently loggin around 10-11 hrs/wk; 4 runs, 2-3 swims, 1-2 bikes. I'm pretty tired by 8pm.
- Cut my coach loose. January is my last full month with a triathlon coach. Purely a financial decision. Gonna plan my own periodized sked for February to my late season A-race.
- Signed up for Country Music Marathon in Nashville, TN. Nothing like running your first marathon on your bday!! Will visit Sal/Kelly/Maximus...hoping to convince Mikey and Pfeiff to join the fun.
- Going to Jamaica w/ GF for a 4 day beach vacation in Feb...looking forward to my last vacation for about 8 months..."no sleep 'till Brooklyn!!"

** Work/school/training skeds are maxed to their limit right now. With DH school just 4 weeks away (which will demand long work/study hours), 5 grad classes to finish by May, and the prospect of ramping up training any more than current levels...I think an IRONMAN isn't in the cards for this season. Trying to avoid the "I can do it all" mistake. I've been known to take on more than I can handle and not realize it until I'm in too deep. The closer DH school gets, the more I hear about what a BEAR it's gonna be, so applying recent lessons learned, I'm backing off a bit. If I don't race a SEP07 IRONMAN, I'll probably set my sights on a late season HALF IRONMAN, most likely the September Narrgansett FIRMMAN.

Looking for any insight from my meager readership...will appreciate any constructive comments!!

Amazing Song!!!

This is a video of Andy McKee. He's a fingerstyle guitarist from KS. Saw this video and others (listed below) on YouTube.com. Check him out there, he's definitely worth a listen...

Drifting- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddn4MGaS3N4
For My Father- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Igb5Yors4

Been a long time...

Well, it certainly has been a long time since I last blogged...here's an update of the last month, bulletized.

- MBA program was like 20 car pile up. Now back on track, will finish in May '07.
- Working like a mad man to finish up Fall 06 MBA classes before holidays.
- Allergies and Asthma now under control. Deathly allergic to dust mites/cats. New medicine and environmental changes have helped.
- Missed 3/4 of my workouts because of the above issues.
- Had good ride w/ coach 2 wks ago. Worked out kinks imposed by missed workouts.
- Workout sked change- Run-4x's/wk, Swim-3x's/wk, Bike-1x/wk
- Running- feels good again. Lungs are back at 95% percent. Rest will come with consistency in sked.
- Xmas shopping almost done...just have M/D's gift to finalize.
- Ready for the holiday fun, but not the holiday 5 lbs ;)

Forecast:
Well the next 2 weeks will bring holiday cheer, good times with family/friends, and probably 5 extra lbs...but I'm hoping to get a lot of homework done, get back on track with workouts, and in January back on my diet.

Sidetracked...

Well, as of late...I've been sidetracked. Between my 8 day trip to Europe, over a week spent in the hospital w/ my GF and her family (her Grandmother fell ill), and just overall laziness...my training sked and diet have been obliterarted lately.

I missed my last race (Plymouth, MA - CX race) of the season, have eaten like a complete gluton, and have only been able to get in a handfull of workouts. Worse yet, my allergies and asthma have been driving me nuts!! I hear that every few years you're allergies go through cycles. Recently my pet dander/dust allergies have been unstoppable...itchy/watery eyes, itchy/sneezy/stuffy/runny nose, dry mouth and just general irititation of my sinuses. Even more frustrating has been a couple of recent asthma bouts that have made it pretty difficult to breath. As you can imagine, both of these recent health dilemmas can severly restrict one's training goals. I've been back and forth to the clinic and through 3 different allergy pills. Hopefully, I've got it under zoned in now...if not, the next step is allergy shots, but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that.

So besides these distractions (mostly unavoidable), tomorrow I try to get back on track...

Inspiration during rough training sessions...

I got an email from my cousin (who's a marathoner in GA) today. It's an article by Rick Reilly and published in Sports Illustrated. The story below provides me with inspiration that I call on when I have a bad run, bike or swim session. If Dick and Ricky can do it, so can I.
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[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay For their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester, Mass. 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.''

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. ``There's nothing going on in his brain.''

"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a Lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.''

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore for two weeks.''

That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''

And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''

How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii . It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.''

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' One doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.'' So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass. always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''

And the video is below....


SIDENOTE - Dick and Ricky Hoyt are triathlon legends. Because I live in their neck of the woods, I've actually raced in two triathlons with them...the Mattapoisett, MA Sprint Tri in July, and the Narragansett FIRMMAN in Sept. They give me daily inspiration!!