Review: 50/50

50/50: Secrets I learned while running 50 marathons in 50 days, Dean Karnazes’ second book about running that I have read. The first one was Ultramarathon Man which was basically race reports strung together to give a history of his running life. 50/50, while different from the first in many ways, still has the same passion of someone telling a story, yet teaching lessons as he goes along.

The first couple of chapters are narratives about how the idea of running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days came about and how the first few races went. Scattered in the narrative are tips and tricks he learned in his running career that a new runner could benefit from. A few chapters into the book the amount of narrative and teaching switch roles. He begins to spend much more time talking about running and preparing yourself for your first marathon than telling details of each marathon run during the event.

The style of the work is exactly what I like in a book. The chapters are short. He focuses on one main theme for each chapter. He relates the events in an enjoyable, east-to-read, style. And since I love biographies and non-fiction of just about any kind, the interweaving of race reports with training guide is exactly what appeals to me.

Whatever you think about Dean and his shameless self promotion, you have to admit that there are many more people enjoying the sport of running because of Dean Karnazes. I was a runner before I ever heard of Karno, but the idea of pushing towards running my first marathon, and hopefully many ultras in the future, can be traced back to Ultramarathon Man.

I highly recommend this book for newer runners and marathoners. While more experienced runners may enjoy the story behind the 50/50 event, I don’t know if they will get as much out of the book as a newer runner will.

I will add the same disclaimer to this as I did on Ultramarathon Man: there is some profanity in the book which is unnecessary and dissappointing Therefore I caution readers about buying it for younger runners.

I want to thank Steve at Run Bulldog Run for having the drawing in which I won the book. Also I thank the publisher for overnighting a copy of the book to me the day they learned my first copy was lost in the mail.

Review: Metal Cowboy

Metal CowboyJoe Kurmaskie, the author of Metal Cowboy is a great story teller. He talks about people whom he met while riding his touring bicycle from place to place. Mostly the stories happened while on long trips across countries. As a writer, he was able to pull interesting stories out of people.

This book is not really a chronicle of a single trip. Nor is it really chronological over a long period of time. One could read the book viewing each chapter as a totally separate story. However, there are times that you would need to have read a previous story to get a full understanding of something mentioned in the current chapter.

Most of the stories relate to bicycle touring in some way. Many are just happenstance that he was on a bike when he met some people to drag an interesting tale out of them and biking had little else to do with the story told. Most are very humorous, while some are sobering in content.

I borrowed this book from a library, but I would like to get my own copy of it. While I don’t re-read many books, this is one that I would enjoy reading again and was actually saddened when the book was finished. I found myself carving out time to read even though I have certain times of the day when I read if it is convenient, but Metal Cowboy seemed to be in my hands much more often than my prescribed times. I usually “savor” books over several weeks (read: I am a slow reader). This book was consumed in 4 days.

While I am disappointed that this book has some cursing in it, I am thankful it is far less than other real-life adventure books I have read.

Joe Kurmaskie has other books on the market. I am hitting a book store tomorrow to see if I can pick up another. He is a great author.

My wife’s only regret about the book is that I now want to strap a tent to my bike and head out for a few days.

Metal Cowboy: Tales from the road less pedaled, Breakaway Books, 1999, 302 pages.

Week 15

Week 14
Monday to Wednesday
Camping. I did not run, but did get in some nice casual bike riding. There were also a couple of easy hour long hikes.

Thursday
I ran an easy route of just 2.84 miles. That took the place of my Monday easy run and my Wednesday speed workout. I feel totally ready for the marathon. Right now I am just trying to run consistently without injury. I have no real time goals for the race.

Friday
I did my long run on Friday since I knew I would be out early on Saturday taking in all the garage sales. The plan was a 12 mile run. I did 12.24 at 10:19 pace. Goal pace (according to the training plan) was 10:13. Though I was not trying, I got pretty close to the goal.

Week 15
Monday: Easy 2 miles.

Wednesday: 5 mile tempo run.

Saturday: Long run of 8 miles at 10:13 pace.

Week 14 started my taper. I have just 2 weeks to go for the marathon.

September Goals Report

Running
The goal is to run 1000 miles this year. I have accomplished 723.5. The month of September was my biggest month so far with 104 miles logged. I am needing to run a bit over 90 miles each month for the next 3 months to make the goal. It should be very do-able. I did these 100 miles in 12 runs. That is probably the least number of runs in a month all year, but there were 2 runs of 20 miles each.

I rode my bike quite a bit this month too. Getting the new road bike and being home more often really helped with that. I put 55 miles on my bike.

Reading
My reading has not gone as well as planned, but I am still hitting the books and pulling in content. If I knew a way to quantify my on-line reading, then my number of pages would go through the roof. I read 645 pages in 6 books. The only one of real interest is Metal Cowboy. I just started that this week and am really enjoying it. I plan to write a review of it soon. I read a book about Eric Liddell (the Chariots of Fire guy) and am reading another one about him. I plan to do a Missionary Talks episode about his life.

Just plugging away. Next month will be my marathon. I also will be away from home most of the month. My bike riding numbers will be almost nothing while my running and reading should get better.

Camping trip

This week my son and I headed to the great outdoors for a couple of days camping. He has been wanting to go for a while. Me too. But we have not felt comfortable with any place in Mexico to make a go of it. I don’t mind primitive camping, but I do like to at least know what kind of animals are going to kill me while I sleep. So we waited till we got back home.

We went to Big Lagoon State Park. It is only 12 miles from where we live. But once you enter the park it seems like you are way out there.

Monday
We arrived at the campground around 3:00 in the afternoon. That is check-in time and it seemed like a good time to get there. That allowed us to have a good final lunch at home before having to eat my cooking.

We got camp set up and then spent a good amount of time trying to string up the G5RV dipole antenna for the ham radio we took along. After we got it all up in the air I saw a note in one of the camp brochures the next day saying not to tie or hang anything in the trees. Oops.

We did not do any exploring that afternoon/evening since we had to run part way back to town to get some supplies we had forgotten. There is a Wal-Mart about half way between the camp and home, so I had my wife meet us there with some things and we popped in to Wal-Mart for the other items. We then spent an hour or so enjoying ice creams from Sonic before parting ways.

Tuesday
After a restless night’s sleep, we got up early to put the coffee pot to use. Yes, my 10 year old drank his fill of coffee. Good for keeping you warm, not that it was too cold. I think it was 68 when we got up Tuesday morning. Not too cold, but cool enough to justify coffee for the lad.

We hiked for a good long time after a breakfast of eggs and bacon. We returned to the camp for a rest and to read a book. Another hike before a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

In the afternoon I took a nap and we rode bikes and read books until we met up with my Dad who brought us some fishing poles and hamburgers. We ate the burgers and headed down to the seashore to do some fishing. My son caught the first fish. It was a pinfish about 6 inches long. The neighbor fishing near us bought it off of him for $1 for bait. The next 2 we caught we donated to the neighbor. We ended up with about 8 pinfish (which we turned into bait or tossed back) and the final catch was a 5 inch catfish. I must have hooked it while trying to set another nibbler. The catfish was hooked in the eye. Ouch!

Slept better that night. Was also much cooler.

Wednesday
Got up to 64 degree temps. Felt cooler since the wind was blowing. After the standard eggs and bacon we went bike riding for a bit. Camp was packed up in various stages of the morning. We also read for a while. Eventually we got out of there around 1:00.

In the events of the 3 days we cooked s’mores and burned hot dogs. We did some torturous things to marshmallows. Though we did not talk with anyone on the radio, we listened to people from Switzerland, Virgin Islands, Spain and Italy. We had more fun with fire than should be allowed. Probably would have had a whole lot less fun if my wife had been there. My son had fun taking hikes with the camera by himself. I was not too worried that there was a pond that hosted 3 alligators just 100 yards from our tent. Maybe I should have been. But this was a fun time to relax and not worry about the world crashing down around us. So we didn’t let a little thing like the stock market or alligators get us too worked up.