Each day, I am amazed.  I am amazed that such a wonderful being can share the same genetic make up as me.  Seriously, my daughter is awesome!  I’m blown away by some of the stuff that she says and some of the things she does.

Just the other day, she woke up pretty early and went to ask her mother if she could watch Dora.  (That’s Dora the Explorer to all of you uninformed.)  Well, Amy’s pregancy this go around has been anything but pleasant.  So, Amy (while in bed trying to ease the nausea) says, “You know how to use the Xbox, you can watch whatever.  But, you’ll have to hook it up.”  She said this thinking that my 3 year old daughter would not be able to hook up the Xbox and resort to going to the play room and playing with puzzles and toys until mommy could kick the pukiness.  (Oh yeah, it’s a word.  Google it.)

Let me also explain a little about the Xbox in question.  You may be thinking, how can you watch Dora on the Xbox.  Well, I’m a tinker-er.  I like to experiment.  When my Xbox got so old that I didn’t really play it that much anymore, and it was way past warranty consideration, I modded it and put Xbox Media Center on it.  So, basically, anything I download can be streamed to my Xbox, making it awesome for storing and playing hours and hours of Dora, Deigo, Little Einsteins, (seriously, I could go on, but I won’t).  My wife has a hard time operating it sometimes.  Not that it’s complex, just that you have to know where to go once running it to pull the files you want.

Back to the other day.  So, Iliana leaves the bedroom and Amy thinks, “Okay, that should give me some time.”  Next thing Amy knows, she hears the TV on.  She goes in there and sees that my daughter, my pride and joy, has unhooked the Wii from the TV and plugged in the AV cables for the Xbox, turned on the TV and Xbox, and properly navigated to the Family Video section and was watching one of her favorite types of videos:  Iliana.  That’s right, my 3 year old daughter can do what a lot of adults can’t do; properly hook up a piece of Audio/Video equipment.  Am I proud?  Dang Skippy, I’m proud.  Am I over-reacting?  Probably, but let me see your kid figure out how to do that on his/her own.  My kid is a genius!  (Dear God, please don’t let this be the pinnacle of her success.)

And just last night, we were laying in bed during story time and she asked a pretty thought provoking question.  Iliana likes “Princess Joscelyn” stories for bedtime.  “Princess Joscelyn” stories are made up stories about a princess named Joscelyn (Iliana’s middle name) and all of her friends.  Her friends include some talking animals like a horse named “Trotter,” a frog named “Ribber,” and many more.  The stories must also  include the Disney Princesses and many other Disney characters.  Well, during last nights story, Princess Joscelyn and Mary Poppins went to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (all her idea) to have a snack.  She asked who was there with Mickey and I said, “Minnie, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy, and Pluto.”  Which are the usual list of suspects hanging out at Mickey’s crib.  And then she said, “Goofy and Pluto are both dogs, but Goofy can talk and Pluto can’t talk.  What’s up with that?”  Profound.  Seriously, what IS up with that?  Out of the mouth of babes.  Does Goofy symbolize the part of us that wants to be the life of the party?  The fun-loving, out-spoken person that doesn’t care what everyone else thinks but is free to be himself?  And does Pluto represent that inner struggle to be a “dog” like Goofy but lacks the confidence to “speak” on his behalf?  Always worried about what people think and so self conscious that he doesn’t “speak” for fear of being judged or rejected?  Granted, she didn’t actually verbalize the last part, but I know she was thinking it.  Three years old people…3…years…old.  Genius.

I know, I’m just an over-excited father that is completely in awe of his child and amazed at some of the things she does.  I know it sounds cliche, but it really does seem like yesterday that she was this little baby that had to depend on us for everything.  And I mean everything.  Now, she’s scaling the jungle gym, performing perfect cartwheels (yeah, that’s right.  Perfect.), and hooking up video game systems.  Time passes so fast.  Iliana, if you’re reading this years from now, know that I love you and I am inspired by you.  Thank you for being a wonderful daughter.

Where do I begin?

Well, it turned out like I expected. No, I didn’t have my best half marathon time. I had my worst. 2:27:54 to be exact. Let me paint the picture for ya.

Saturday night

I didn’t want to get my stuff ready for the race. I eventually did, but it was a struggle. I checked the weather and it said that the temps for race time wouldn’t get past 46F. So, I decide to pin my bib number and “Half” designation on my long sleeve running shirt. I get everything else set up so that all I have to do is wake up and get dressed. I even had most of everything in my truck ready to go.

Sunday morning

Had to take nighttime medicine to help me sleep because I’m still sick. Woke up, showered and ate a bowl of oatmeal. Looked at the weather one last time. The current temperature in Little Rock was 49F. So much for not getting into the 50′s during the race. This gets me re-thinking my entire race wardrobe. (Not in a fashion sense, but in a functional sense.) Left the house around 6:10 am. Still not feeling it for this race. Got to Little Rock shortly after 7 am and got a parking spot. Got out of the truck and decide to ditch the pants and long sleeve shirt and run in shorts and a technical T-shirt. So much for putting my bib number and “Half” designation on my shirt last night. Also, I’ve been using Vick’s ointment for the past 2 days to try to get my cough under control. You know, the medicine that you rub on your chest. Well, before I leave my truck, I have slathered it on my upper lip, in my mustache, and anywhere else on my face I think might help.

I finally get everything situated and head to the starting line. Starting to feel kinda lonely. Don’t know anyone there. I started in corral “D,” which is where all of the casual runners start. Every once and a while, people turn around and do that “smell the air” thing like they are trying to determine the source of some weird smell. I think the Vick’s is so strong, it’s not only keeping my coughing under control, but helping the others around me. So to throw everyone else off, I start smelling the air and looking around, too, in a way that tells everyone, “Yeah, I smell it, too. What is that?” It worked.

Well the starting gun fires (I think. I was so far back I couldn’t hear it.) and we’re all off. You can tell the first timers. They’re all giddy and ready to run, run, run. I can always tell who they are because, mentally, I have them pinned to the ground and am punching them until they realize that this is going to be how they feel in about 2 hours. It’s cute really.

Fast forward about 1 hour and 20 minutes. I’m coming up on mile 8 and to my surprise, feel pretty good. I look at my watch and start to calculate the time and what it would take at my current pace to beat/tie last year’s time. At this point, I’m right at 10:30 minute mile pace. If I keep it up, I’ll beat my time. I start to day dream that my wife, daughter and some friends of mine were going to surprise me somewhere throughout the course to give me that extra pep I needed to finish strong. I start to think that I have a chance. Turns out, I was getting high on the Vick’s.

Then, I turn the corner and hit the 9 mile marker. It’s a steady uphill climb for about .75 miles. By the time I got to the top, speed walkers were passing me. Yeah, that’s right. My run wasn’t fast enough for people walking really fast. Talk about embarrassing. I finally level out around the 10 mile marker and realize that I now 1) can’t stop running and 2) have to run 10 minute miles to tie last year’s time. (It’s amazing how good I am at math when I’m running.) I also realize that the .75 uphill run depleted what energy I had in reserve. And considering that I was sick and started out with less energy in reserve, I don’t stand a chance.

By the time I get to mile marker 12, I look at my watch and realize that I have to run the last mile in 5 minutes to tie last year. It was at that point that I gave it up. I started walking for a few minutes. I was completely spent. I barely had enough energy to start running again when it turned into downhill. Finishing the last half mile took all I could muster. I kept looking around for a familiar face. None in sight. I crossed the finish line and heard the announcer say, “Great job, half marathoners! You managed to finish under 2 and a half hours!” For some reason, I wasn’t excited to have just finished “under 2 and a half hours.” When I race, I only race to compete against myself. There’s no way I’m going to win one of these races, so I race to beat my previous time. So, my races have 2 places: first and last. Oh crap. I just realized that I’ve just summed up my racing philosophy to resemble that of Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights; “If you’re not first, you’re last!” Now I feel even worse.

So, I finished and got my medal. They also were handing out those mylar blankets. I almost passed them up. I was thinking, “Why would I want one of those? I’m hot.” Turns out, I’m glad I got one because I would have frozen on the long walk back to my truck. Or I should say, “the long limp back to my truck.”

I learned a lot yesterday.

All of the above 3 combined to create the Perfect Storm of Sucky Running.

Now I have to go train for my next race.

*Sniff* *Sniff* Yeah, I know. What is that smell?

Yeah, if you’ve seen my Facebook status, you know I’m sick and I have a race coming up. And that I think this weather sucks. Tuesday afternoon, it was 81 degrees. Thursday afternoon, it was 31 degrees. Anyone else see the problem here.
So, now I’m all congested and hacking up a lung and have to run in the Half Marathon Sunday. So, I’m either going to have the worst half marathon time or my best. The worst, well, because I feel like a big cold pile of poop. Not steaming hot, because that might be better than how I feel right now. Cold poop. The worst kind. The best because I might get out there and think, “Well, I’m here so let’s go ahead and get this over with so I can go home.” And run faster than I ever have. (By the way, as I wrote that last sentence, I nearly coughed up my other lung. Lovely.)
The only silver lining is that when I tell people that it took me so long to finish that the walkers beat me to the finish line, I can say, “You know I was really sick and didn’t think I would be able to run. I almost died. Twice. I left part of my lungs on the course up around the Governor’s Mansion. What’s your excuse for being so slow?”
Everyone knows that’s a lie. All of my friends are way faster than me. Now I have an excuse.
Oh yeah. I went to the Little Rock Marathon Expo to pick up my packet today. I gotta admit, I was a little disappointed. Sure, it was organized a lot better this year than it was last year. There were no lines. The packet pickup/shirt pickup/chip check was as fast as I’ve ever seen one, but the vendors were very limited. Not a whole lot of swag either. When the largest displays are from Easy Runner and One More Mile, then there’s a problem attracting vendors. On the plus side, Bart Yasso was there promoting his book. If you’ve ever read Runner’s World, you’ve probably read something from Bart Yasso. Pretty neat.
So, to all of my friends that are running the race on Sunday, I’ll be the guy coughing his way to the finish line.

*cough* *cough* *hack*

Whoops. Gotta go. My lungs just fell out.