Maybe it is the fact that I lived in California as a child. Not just anywhere in California, but in Humboldt County, the marijuana/hippie capitol of the world. Or maybe it is because my parents owned one when I was really little and it is the first vehicle I can remember. Regardless of the reason, I’ve always been fascinated with the VW Van!

It’s Saturday night, I’m at Tan Tara and I’ve just finished listening to the pre-race briefing for the Ultramax Half Iron Triathlon which I’ll be competing in the following morning. But my mind isn’t on the race, instead I leave and wander around the Inn, trying to find an internet connection for my computer. Finally I have to settle for a “High Speed Internet Kiosk”, one dollar for every three minutes. With a high speed connection, that wouldn’t be bad, but as I would soon find out, it wasn’t high speed.

After inserting my first dollar I tried loading the website. Finally, after my first three minutes are just about up, I’m able to login into my account on ebaymotors. There is now just 10 minutes left on the bidding for a 1977 VW camper van. While I had been winning the bid for the last several days, I wasn’t anymore. With a $3,000 price cap in my mind, I increase my bid, only to see myself outbid again. Of course, every time I place a bid, the page reloads which eats up several of my minutes so I keep on pumping in those dollars. By now the time is down to less than one minute remaining and the price is at $3,100. After doing some quick math in my head, I decided I could go up to $3,200 or maybe even $3,300 but this was my last shot since I knew I could only get one more bid in. So I entered $3300 and submitted it just as the time expired! My competitor had put in a final bid of $3275…

So that is how I purchased “the van”…

It’s hard to believe it has been close to two months since my last post! Not much has happened since then as far as races go. I did the Bulldog 5k October 23rd. Wasn’t a spectacular run for me. Finished 5th overall and 1st in my age group with a time of 19:01. The Bulldog 5k route is fairly hilly so it isn’t a good route for fast times.I should mention that prior to the Bulldog 5k, I took a trip out to New York and met up with Brandon Scurlock. I traveled to New York via Amtrak, traveling through Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and arriving in Utica, New York. From there we traveled through Vermont to New Hampshire. After eating the mandatory lobster in Maine, we spent the night in New Hampshire. The following morning we got up and ran around 7 miles, got back to the motel and headed down the coast. We traveled down through Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and arrived in Pennsylvania stopping at my sisters to visit and eat dinner. We then traveled to Philly where Brandon had a friend at whose house we were able to crash at. After a day of touring Philly, we traveled by bus to New York City and spent a day walking around Manhattan. The following day we travelled back to Missouri via Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois.

Two weeks later found me flying out to California where I was due to be a groomsman in my friend Todd Peterson’s wedding. After having barely recovered from my previous “vacation”, I decided to play this trip a little more low key and not go rushing around California trying to visit friends. This trip was a little more relaxing and I had a blast hanging out with my friends Todd and James. Despite drinking a little too much and gaining some weight, it wasn’t all bad training wise as I was able to get in a few decent runs including a 9 or 10 miler along the beach.

Somewhere in the midst of traveling from coast to coast, I decided to start training for an early spring marathon. I picked the New Orleans Mardis Gras Marathon on February 27th to train for. At this point I am 5 weeks into the 18 week program. The Mardis Gras marathon is supposed to be a flat and fast course, so I’m looking to dramatically improve my PR of 3:06:39. While I’ve been told with proper training I should be able to run a 2:30:00 marathon (based on Vo2), I’m realistically looking for a time of around 2:45:00.

Final item of note, the 2004 Reindeer Romp was yesterday. After having run the 1.5 mile race last year, I decided to do the same this year to check for improvement or lack thereof. Last year I won with a time of 8:42. I figured I ought to be able to get that closer to 8′ even. As it turns out, my time was 10″ slower than last year. At first I was a little worried about this result, but I’ve since realized the following:
1. I’ve spent the last 7 months running with Achilles Tendonitis and while it is mostly better, I’ve only recentley started speed workouts again.
2. I was farther along in a marathon training program at this point last year.
3. I’ve been training heavily 7 days a week for the last several weeks. Even my “rest days” on Fridays include hard swimming with Masters swimming. So while my legs felt fresh, my heart was probably a little tired.

Despite the slower time of 8:52, I’m confident my current training is going to leave me well prepared for next year. I’m considering some slight re-alignment of my training schedule to give myself several true “rest days” a week, days on which my heart rate never gets higher than @155.