First off, I need you both to understand that I don’t really enjoy running. I do it for you. I do it so I won’t weigh 350 lbs. I do it so that I’ll hopefully still be around to attend your college graduation, to walk you down the aisle, to meet my grandchildren. Etc. etc. Blah blah blah…

So, all for you, I signed up to run the White Rock Half Marathon.

The night before the big day, I dropped you (Asher) off at Gramma & Granpa’s for the night, and met up with some fellow half marathoner friends from work for a pre-race carb extravaganza. We ate an exceptionally tasty pasta dinner at Patrizio’s on Preston & Mockingbird – Angel hair pasta with artichokes and sun dried tomatoes. Then it was straight home to try to get a good night’s rest.

I woke up at 5am to the dreaded sound of pouring rain. It was 45 degrees outside and wasn’t going to get any warmer. I dressed in shorts, a body armor long sleeved cold gear shirt, a light running shirt over that, light gloves and a head band that covered my ears. I was ready to freeze my ass off.  After getting dressed, I grabbed my rain coat, hopped in the car and drove over to Sarah’s (friend from work) house near Greenville Ave & Mockingbird to meet up with some other runners and carpool to Fair Park. We had some bananas and coffee, and headed off in the rain to the outright crappiest part of Dallas. Traffic was ridiculous and parking was worse, but we finally parked and made our way towards the starting line with the throngs of the other 26,000 racers. It was cold. It was rainy. It was generally miserable. But, I took solace in the fact that it wasn’t 85 degrees and humid. Give me cold and rainy over hot and humid any day of the week.

Hell hath no fury like a pre-marathon bathroom. Everyone has been hydrating like mad for 3 days straight in preparation for the race, and everyone has to pee – Right NOW. The lines are absolutely insane, and the lack of hygiene and cleanliness people have when they are in a hurry is disgusting. I lost my friends in the panic to find a bathroom and continued on the starting corrals on my own. By this time, it was about 7:40am and the starting line was still nowhere in sight. The people around me were starting to freak out, running around and shouting at no one in particular “Where is the #$%#$@ starting line.” I had no idea that runners use such colorful adjectives! I listened to my inner-cow and followed the herd, which soon made its way to the starting area. The mass of humanity trying to cram into the starting corrals was mind boggling, almost as mind boggling as the lack of planning that must have gone into getting that many people into said starting corrals. It was chaos. My corral was, luckily, near the front (B1). One death-defying leap over a 4ft chain link fence, and I was all corralled up and ready to race.

The rain let up as I sucked down a vanilla bean energy goo packet and some water at 7:50am and tried to mentally prepare myself for the beating my body was about to endure. I’d been training since June, but didn’t get in as many long runs as I would have liked too. I just couldn’t find the time. I blame the both of you. No offense, but having kids is a gigantic time-suck. Regardless, I felt pretty confident that I’d be able to make it through the 13.1 miles in one piece.  

I have to interject, at this point, that I run in Vibram 5-fingers. Hopefully you still know what they are. If not, google them. If they are all the rage, then you can brag to your friends that I was a man well ahead of my time. If not, just skip on down to the next paragraph. The 5-fingers force you to run with a mid-foot strike and, for me, they are much more fun to run with and easier on my hips and knees. As slow as I am, I need some help not landing on my heels the whole time. Anyway, while I was lined up in the starting corral waiting for the starting gun, I was getting peppered with questions from curious runners around me asking me how I liked them. Most were nice and genuinely interested, but a few had that smug “you’re an idiot” tone. Later on, during the race, one guy asked me if I was doing the whole or the half marathon. I responded ‘half’ and he laughingly said “yeah, running a full in those would be tough”. I had the urge to kick his feet out from under him. If there’s weather that’s perfect for the 5-fingers, it’s in the rain. Everyone with traditional running shoes had soggy socks. I didn’t have that problem. Suckers.

After the national anthem was sung (accompanied by some rather pathetic fireworks), the starting gun sounded. It took about 6 minutes of walking with the herd before I hit the official starting line and we were off. The first 3 or 4 miles were easy going, but I was getting passed by everyone and their mom, which made it extremely difficult to keep my slow pace of 10:30 per mile. I’m not sure if I got stuck in the wrong starting group or what, but I tried to stay as far to the right and out of the way as I best I could. Every time I looked down at my phone to see my current pace, I was way too fast. The rain started back up 2 miles in. It was a torrential downpour at first, but lightened up a bit as the race wore on. The rain didn’t bother me much aside from the water pooling up in my long sleeved raincoat. I had to keep ringing out my sleeves to keep them from weighing my arms down. After the race, I realized the “raincoat” I was wearing to keep the water off me was actually soaked through and weighed about 5 lbs. Next time I think I’ll leave it in the car.

The best part of the race was all the people that braved the cold and rain to come out and show support for the runners. Most of the course was lined by spectators offering their praise and encouragement as you pass by. I found myself energized by their cheers. Some even passed out water, orange slices, and tissues. On Turtle Creek I passed a guy that was handing out oranges, but I dropped it during the handoff. He grabbed another and hit me on a slant pattern down the sideline with a perfect spiral. Best orange I’ve ever tasted. At the 8 mile marker near Greenville Ave, there were some outstanding young gentlemen handing out cups of beer. It was delicious, although I’m not sure it was entirely legal to hand out or consume alcohol in a public street like that. God bless those courageous men.

I was still feeling pretty good at the 8.8 mile marker where the full marathoners and the half marathoners parted ways. The fullers (fullies?) turned left at Greenville Ave and headed off for White Rock Lake. The rest of us measly halfers turned right toward our finish line destination in the ghetto that is Fair Park. One poor young bastard ran by me at around the 11.5 mile mark and asked a guy in front of me “are you all running the half or the full?” The guy laughed and replied “Half. You missed the split about 3 miles back.”  The kid’s face turned white as he hurriedly turned around and sprinted back from whence he came. I guess he got to run the rare 32.2 mile marathon.

The rest of the race was a bit of a blur. Fatigue set in and my focus was drawn inward. I remember seeing a really tall African looking dude fly by me where the full and half marathon courses met back up. He was on mile 23, a mere 13 miles ahead of me and he was still running faster than I can sprint. Unreal.

At 12 miles, I realized that I’d have to run a sub 8 minute last mile to finish in 2:15:00. I picked up the pace as much as I could, but it was no use. I had nothing left in the tank. It didn’t help that the finish line was not the same as the starting line. The final stretch was a quarter mile down the same road back toward the starting line – a big yellow banner hanging over the road. When the runners (including me) saw that, they figured it was the finish line and began to go all out for the finish. It wasn’t until I got about 15 yards from it that I could see there was a sharp right turn and then another 500 yards or so to the real finish line. You could hear the shouts of disbelief as runners realized the finish line they saw was not really the finish line.

I made it across the line at 2:17:50. Going into the race, I didn’t really have a set goal. I just wanted to finish. I knew in the back of my mind that I could probably keep a 10:30 per mile pace, and that’s pretty much how it ended up, so I’m pretty happy with the results. I kind of wish I’d broken that 2:15 mark, but I guess that gives me something to work toward. I’ve already signed up for 4 half marathons next year. Yes, you read that right. FOUR. I am nuts.

The post-race activities were insane. As soon as I crossed the line, I grabbed a heat-blanket (4×6 sheet of light tin foil material smeared with ads) and headed for the indoor post-race area. It was only about 100 yards or so to get from the finish line to inside, but my body was already shivering violently. It was a great relief to get out of the cold. I grabbed my finisher’s medal and t-shirt, got my photo taken, and picked up a beer and a banana (in that order). I then went back to the entrance to wait for my friends to finish. Watching the runners come through the finisher’s area made for some terrific people watching. I saw people laughing, crying, and joking around. Most were limping and some could barely walk. I saw a guy with no arms or legs, just prosthetic blades. But all of them had a certain look of accomplishment and pride in their eyes. That was cool to see.

My friends Sarah, Maddie and Laura came through the finish about 20 minutes later. We all had a good stretch and decided it was time to go home. That’s when the real fun began. We headed towards the car and realized that we had no idea which way to go to get back to the car. If you’ve ever been to Fair Park, you know that it all kind of looks the exactly the same. Hopefully by the time you’re both old enough to care about reading this, they will have demolished the whole damn thing and built a new Cowboys stadium or something in its place. Anyway, we ended up wandering around Fair Park for about 25 minutes in the 40 degree pouring rain conditions with cramped up legs while freezing our asses off. We finally made it back to the car, changed into dry clothes and headed back to Sarah’s house. Unfortunately, her house was located right in the middle of the course so all the roads in and out of her neighborhood where closed. We spent another 45 minutes in the car trying to figure out how to get 4 miles to her house. But, at least we were dry and warm.

I rushed home to take Asher to hockey practice and laced up the skates with the kids for an hour session. I didn’t feel all that bad on the ice other than being a little stiff. After practice, it was off to get a post-race massage your awesome mom scheduled for me. It was heaven. Your mom and I then took the two of you to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner to celebrate my accomplishment and I gorged myself on a mushroom cheeseburger the size of my head. THAT cheeseburger made it all worth it! Ha.

Love,
Dad

This morning, Asher and I finally started taking it apart to try to figure it out. I made an off-hand comment about it never leaking while I’m watching it and Asher says in a serious voice “Dad, let’s just look the other way!” I laughed and we did. Leak City!!

Now that we know where it’s leaking from, it’s time to MacGruber it up!

Asher had a blast and did great for his first time out. It was a little slow going at first, but he got the hang of it as the session went on. He scored his first goal and even threw his first body check!! (2:40 into the video!). 

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When I grow up, I am NOT going to marry a poor person!

I created the original site using Dreamweaver with crappy, crappy frames. 5 years later, I finally went back to the drawing board and revamped the site using wordpress. I love it so far, but I’ve still got a lot of work to do to get the site looking just the way I want it. So you may notice lots of tweaks (big and small) as I tinker around with the aesthetics of the site.

Let me know what you think of our new look in the comments. Thanks!

8/01/2009

Dear Asher,

Happy Birthday my little man! 3 years old already – I can’t believe it! Part of me feels like we were just bringing you home from the hospital yesterday, but another part of me (the bigger part) can’t remember what my life was like before you came into the world. Watching you grow up these past 3 years has become my favorite pastime. I still can’t believe I have such a wonderful son, and I can’t, and probably never will be able to, describe in words how you make me feel. I can only hope you get to be a dad yourself someday (in the very, very distant future).

You got one heck of a birthday present earlier this month when your little sister Avery was born. You love her so much and have been the best big brother in the world. We have a video we took at the hospital of the first time you met her and it is the cutest thing ever. Like any three year old, you sometimes have trouble being gentle with her, but you try really hard to be careful. You are already very protective of her and you always try to make her feel better when she cries. I feel sorry for Avy’s future boyfriends… you and I are going be a protective force to be reckoned with.

As I write this, you are sitting 3 feet from me on the couch playing Star Wars Battlefront II on our Playstation2. It’s a perfect example of how you shatter my ‘pre-kid’ ignorance on a daily basis. If someone had told me three years ago that before my son was three he’d be able to play Star Wars on the Playstation2, I’d have told them they were crazy. You are more intelligible and composed than I am most of the time. For the most part, you are completely autonomous. You can dress yourself, go to the bathroom by yourself, get yourself food and eat it by yourself, surf the internet by yourself (only pbskids.org of course!), use the TV remote control, and a TON of other day-to-day things. Each and every one of them is simply amazing to me. I had no idea that a kid would be able to do all these things at three. You were somehow able to completely bypass the terrible twos. I think I can honestly count on one hand the number of terrible moments you had in the last year (although your mother might have a LOT more being home with you all day).

We went to see the doctor today for your three year appointment and Avy’s three week appointment. You were so brave and you knew it too because you kept telling everyone on the way in “I’m brave”. You handled all the poking and prodding like a champ. My favorite part was your eyesight test. They have a poster on the wall with shapes instead of letters and they make you stand on a line and tell the nurse what the letters are. Thankfully you have terrific eyesite and could see all the shapes with no problems. The nurse would point and you would get all worked up and yell the name of the shape. As she moved down the poster, she pointed at a moon shape and you yelled “crescent!!” Seriously? Crescent? You are soooo your mother’s child.

Your vocabulary continues to grow and you say some really funny stuff. One of my favorite Asher-isms from this month happened the other day when you were playing with your fishing pole. I asked what you were fishing for and you told me “seahorses Dad” like duh, what else would you be fishing for. So I asked what kind of bait you were using. You thought about it for a minute and replied “Seahorse treats.” “What do they taste like?” I asked. Again, you thought for a minute and said in a deadpan voice “M&M’s.”

Love,
Papa

Sarah woke up at about 12:30am on Monday morning with contractions that felt a little worse than her usual Braxton-Hicks stomach crunches. She let me sleep about another hour, then we both tried to decide if we should start making some middle-of-the-night phone calls. We ended up calling Sarah’s folks at about 1:45 so they could come to our house and stay with Asher while we checked into the hospital. My lovely wife then proceeded to take a shower and put on makeup while having contractions about 4-5 minutes apart.

This is the part were we slightly miscalculated the timing of the whole ‘contractions hurt’ thing… It took Sarah’s parent’s (John and Lalla) a little longer to get to our house than we had anticipated. By the time they arrived around 2:35am, Sarah was in a significant amount of discomfort. They barely got in the front door before we were rushing out the back. I love that Baylor Frisco is so close to our house, however, your wife being in labor is the ONE time you have an excuse to drive like it’s the last lap of the Indy 500. I think it took about 12 seconds to get to there… wish it was further. It’s funny that the ride home is the exact opposite. You drive about 15mph like a granny when the newborn is in the car. The trips cancel each other out, right officer?

We got to the “hospital” around 2:45am and were all checked in by 3. I put hospital in quotes because it’s more like a 5-star resort than a hospital. We are thinking of our stay here like a vacation – it will cost about the same and our room, the food, and the staff are nicer than any hotel we could afford. Not to mention they give out free drugs! By the time they hooked Sarah up to all the machines and monitors, she was in a LOT of pain during contractions which were now about 2 1/2 minutes apart. It took almost another hour for the blood work to come back and the epidural dude to come, but Sarah handled it like champ. Neither of us have ANY idea how anyone could do it naturally… that is just crazy amazing. The eppy meds kicked in about 4:15am and Sarah was feeling great!

She started pushing at 5:00am and Avy popped out 23 minutes later!!

Mouse over some of the pictures below to read the descriptions

Our new addition should arrive sometime in early July! We couldn’t be happier!!

Dear Asher,

Wow, this past month has been insane. Do I say that every month? Well, this month for real! Your mom and I found out that in about 7 months, you’ll be a big brother!! That’s right, you’ll have your very own little one to boss around. We are so excited and can’t wait to find out if you’ll have a little brother or a little sister… We told our friends and family, but I’ll save those stories for next month’s letter.

You are becoming quite the little hockey player. Your wrist shot is already better then your old man’s! All you want to do is play hockey. Last week I made you your very own “real” stick from am old broken shaft of mine cut down to size with a junior blade stuck in the end. We spend hours and hours out in the garage passing and shooting the puck. One of your favorite things to do is to ‘Faceoff’. You either want to pretend you’re the ref and drop the puck for me, or you want to be the center and take the faceoff. You are already working on perfecting your goal-scoring celebrations. You are a master at the fist pump, but you have yet to master the ‘ride the stick-pony’ move.

I’ve had a ton of 7pm Sunday hockey games lately, so mom and you have been coming out to watch a lot. I don’t think you actually watch very much of the game, you just like being there with your little stick and puck. After one recent game, I took you out on the ice and you took a couple shots on goal. It was awesome the way your eyes glimmered as I skated around with you in my arms. After the game, we usually go out for pizza or wings with the team. Last time we went, you apparently weren’t feeling all that great… I thought you were just tired until you erupted like Mt. Vesuvius while sitting in my lap. It was gross… I had puke ALL over me. We got you cleaned up and bailed as soon as we could, but you let loose again about half way home in the car – projectile style. I swear there was puke on the windshield… I spent about 3 hours that night cleaning up yarf in the car, yarf on you, yarf on your mom… Poor little guy… Our house was vomit city, and you were the mayor for about 4 straight nights. I finally figured out that I needed to carry an emergency yarf bowl with me at all times. You are a total trooper though, you’d yarf, then just keep on truckin’ like nothing happened. I admire that.

The last couple of months you’ve started this weird ‘boycotting’ of daddy thing. I try not to take it personally, but it is soooo hard. At least once a day, something happens and you want nothing to do with me. “no daddy” you say. “Go Away”. I guess all working parents go through this at some point, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I think a little piece of me dies each time you scream “I don’t want Daddy”. You usually make up for it later with lots of hugs and kisses though, so it’s all good…

I had such an “I’m turning into my father” moment the other day. You were standing up on a kitchen chair and I kept telling you to sit down on your bottom. I tell you this for your own good because I know, in all my vast wisdom, that standing on kitchen chairs is a very bad idea. Sure enough, it took about 12 seconds for you to tumble head fist off the chair and land with a loud thud on the tile floor. You immediately began to cry, and as I picked you up off the tile, I heard myself say “and that’s why we don’t stand on kitchen chairs!”. Oh God, did I just say that? Here you are, crying in my arms, with a potentially serious injury, and I just told you “that’s what you get for not listening to me”… I am so much like my father in a lot of ways, for better and for worse. And for the record, you cried for about 12 seconds, then you went back to standing on that chair!

Work has been really crazy-busy lately. I’ve been working late quite a bit and when I get home, the first thing I do is to check my email and set up my laptop so I can do more work. A couple weekends ago, we had a power outage in my office building, so I got to work an entire Saturday, shutting down our datacenter and bringing it all back up. You asked me several times after that day, “is the power on daddy?” ”Check email daddy?” “Go to work daddy?” Each day when I get home now you ask me if I was at work in this strange accusatory tone… it’s like you’re checking up on me, making sure I wasn’t out doing something fun without you.

I guess I’ll have to start including info about how your little sibling is coming along, and how your mom is handling it all. We should know a lot more next month!

Love,
Papa