I think it's awesome that Robbie randomly wears his homemade 'Team Harkey' shirt in public. (10:46pm)

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Walking the dog in the rain. (6:42pm)

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Oops. Thats 14,000 hours! (8:03am)

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In all-day brainstorming sessions with IBM all this week. Boring. (2:56pm)

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Leigh just told me I look like Ryan Hale. Apparently all it takes is short hair and a beard. (6:26pm)

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Just installed a new microwave since the handle broke on our old one. Feeling handy. (1:07pm)

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Pseudo Thanksgiving number three with The Hinsons. (6:43pm)

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Is this Twitter/Facebook sync working? (1:34pm)

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Thanksgiving number 1 with my Dad and his family. Good to see my brother, his wife, and 2 year old niece. (3:53pm)

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Not real happy with the new Killers album so far. (9:20am)

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Today is my first day in the Charlotte office in 4 weeks. (10:29am)

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I guess since I made a long post about possibly not being ready for the JFK 50K, I should also post a little bit about the experience and what it was like completing it. So here is a long version and short version of the day's events:

Short Version:
Top 10 Lessons learned while running the JFK 50K
1. 50 miles is a very very long way
2. When attempting such a race you should probably complete adequate training first
3. Pretzel sticks, cups of M & Ms, cookies, and Snicker's Marathon bars are very filling
4. The Appalachian Trail is very rocky
5. Having a friend who is willing to go support your running is an amazing thing
6. As a general rule, runners are very friendly people
7. Rural Maryland has beautiful countryside/trails
8. Time goes by much quicker when running with others
9. The only thing worse then thinking about still having to run 20 miles is thinking that if you don't hurry, the officials won't let you finish
10. 50 miles is a very very long way

Long Version
The day started with a quick breakfast (I mean we did stay at a Holiday Inn Express...) as we hurried to the car and to the local High School where the race number pickup and start line was. Once we got all that settled we walked about half a mile to the start and actually got there as the gun was going off. Yet despite the rush, I somehow still managed to notice the bank sign showing a temperature of 17 degrees. After a quick pose for the camera and a jog to the start line, it was immediately into the first section of the course - a very steep incline as we were headed up to the start of the Appalachian Trail. Once we got into the mountains and on the Appalachian Trail I immediately wished I had stuck to road races. I have never seen so many rocks in my life and it isn't a good idea to try and run on them. I stumbled a couple times, but even worse was the numerous people I saw fall in front or behind me. The good news was that everyone I saw managed to get up and keep going. Once we finally made it out of the mountains (around mile 15) it was on the the tow path along the Potomac River. A lot of people who ran the race complain about this section being boring, yet I really enjoyed it and found the scenery plenty inspiring.

The next ten miles went by pretty slowly and around mile 25 is when I really started to doubt if I was going to be able to finish the race. When the longest distance you have ever run is 26 miles and you feel like that about destroyed you, it is hard to wrap your head around the idea that you still have to run that entire distance despite the fact that you are exhausted. Yet remarkably, about this time I came upon a guy named Chris. Chris liked to talk, was running a set pace (6 minute run, 2 minute walk) religiously, and came along at just the right time. For the next 15 miles I ran/walked with Chris and listened to him talk about all sorts of things. The point was it completely distracted me from what I was doing and the next thing I knew I only had about 10 miles left.

Somewhere along the line we picked up another guy and girl who also stuck with us at the same pace. Right as we were close to finishing the tow path section and beginning to enter the road part, Chris let us know that he didn't think he was going to make it. He was spent and feared that he wasn't going to make the cut off times setup. While he seemed to be OK with this, I was not. So from that point on I stuck with the girl (Amy) or the guy (Charles) and we plugged along together all through the road section and to the finish line. At this point Amy's parents hugged me and thanked me for helping their daughter complete the race because the friend she came to the race with had dropped out 15 miles back and so Amy was on her own. The truth is, having those two run with me after Chris gave up also pushed me to the finish. We all somehow helped each other and I think that is part of what the race is all about.

I was fortunate enough to have Robbie go along with me to the race and I really don't know if I could have done it without his support. Not only did he help for the obvious reasons like help with driving and meeting me at the aid stops with of bag of my clothes and supplies, but the less obvious help he provided was the moral support of knowing I had someone there with me and just seeing a familiar face every 2 or 3 hours.

It's funny how your perception of events changes over time; running races is especially prone to this phenomenon for some reason. It has only been two days since finishing the JFK 50K yet I already feel differently about it today than I did yesterday. If you asked me yesterday to sum up the race I would have said about an hour of excitement (including 30 minutes pre-race), a couple hours of challenge, a few hours of discomfort, at least four hours of pain, around three hours of torture, and lastly an evening of pride and exhaustion. All that with at least 10 hours of doubt mixed in there somewhere. Basically, it sucked. I had several people ask me if I would ever do something like that again and I felt pretty confident saying "Hell no!".

However, slowly but surely the pain is starting to wear off and what I am left with is the feeling of accomplishment. You start thinking about how good it feels it have done something that so few people even attempt and realize that in the grand scheme of things it wasn't THAT bad. So will I do it again? Who knows. For now I'll just focus on being able to walk like a normal 28 year old guy and not a 70 year old man.
 (8:34pm)

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I am walking like a 90 year old man today. (8:50pm)

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That shit is done (5:46pm)

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Cracker Barrel with Robbie while he tweets about it. (7:43pm)

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Whoa, last night's Sons of Anarchy was intense. (10:33am)

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So I am really nervous about a run I am doing on Saturday. Like sick to my stomach nervous. The race is 50 miles, it is in Hagerstown, MD and there are over 1,000 people running. I have been nervous for runs before (my first marathon comes to mind) but nothing like this.

The thing is, I am really nervous because I think I actually might fail. Normally I would have trained enough, mentally prepared myself, etc, etc but because I have been in such of a funk lately, I have done none of these things. Normally if running a marathon (half the distance of this race mind you) I would have been training for 3 or 4 months, have run multiple 18,20, and even 22 mile runs, gotten my diet straight, and mentally be ready to handle 3+ hours being my own hype man. But I actually haven't run over 16 miles at one time since last August. That's over a year ago.

Whenever I sign up for things like this it is to challenge myself, give me a goal to work towards, and to look forward to the feeling of accomplishment when done. Yet with this race I almost didn't tell anyone about it because of the fear of failure from the start. Now with the run 2 days away, I am letting the word out to everyone. My hope is that by knowing you all now know I am trying this run and will ultimately know if I fail will help to motivate me if worse comes to worse. I always tell people that your body can do almost anything if you can overcome the mental part where you brain tells you to stop. Saturday I will find out if this is true...and hopefully walk away from it. (8:26pm)

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Learning how Leigh really feels about my upcoming run via a twitter post - despite the fact that she is sitting right beside me. (7:39pm)

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The sky is on fire tonight and it looks great. (4:40pm)

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