Bonus Resolution 4 - Finish 12 Races in a Year - 12 Down, Complete!!

Cannot believe I managed to knock this out before the end of October. But last weekend marked the 12th race of this year, which will mean at least an average of one race a month. What better race to achieve that milestone with than a half marathon. I was pretty reluctant on signing up for this one since I just did a half in Grand Forks a few weeks prior, but then some personal life happenings transpired that forced my hand into signing up for the Fargo Mini Marathon not too long before the registration deadlines expired.

I was a little worried that I was going into the race with a severe lack of sleep. I was able to carb up at the local Noodles and Company before going to work early the night before the race, which resulted in me getting off work a little earlier than usual so I was luckily able to squeeze in a two hour nap before booking it to Fargo. Race packet pick up took place only on the day before the race, so a friend of mine in Fargo picked it up for me, and I met up with them in the morning once I drove into Fargo. As luck would have it, they were only a short three minute drive from the event center where the race started.

The weather was another gloomy overcast out with temps in the mid 30s, so it was brisk to say the least. I kept thinking it looked like it was going to pour on us at any point during the race, but thankfully we all managed to evade any hint of precipitation that day. Only major blow to deal with were some hefty winds that picked up during the final couple of miles, but I will take that over getting doused for nearly two hours like I did in Grand Forks. The Fargo Mini operated like the half in Grand Forks, where the 5K started about 10 minutes before, and then the 10k and Half racers started together and split off during the race.

I did not want a repeat of the Wild Hog where I started off too fast and was getting passed by everyone after the halfway point into the race and then have my legs feel like lead the last two miles, so I started off at a more gradual pace for the first couple of miles where I passed a fair amount of people and got passed by about an equal amount as the pack thinned out. Around mile two, I picked up on a pacer around what seemed like was my ideal race pace of around 8:40-8:45 minutes a mile. I kept up with the girl in the purple headband and sweater until she split away with the rest of the 10k runners at mile four.

About a mile or two later, I want to say around mile six I found another similar paced lady who I managed to keep up with and stay behind. I liked her pace as she must have gradually been increasing and we were slowly but surely starting to pass ahead of the field. This felt great and I told myself whatever I did that I must maintain pace and stay within 30-45 seconds behind her so I do not lose steam. Somehow, someway I managed to pull this off for the remaining six to seven miles of the race.

The last three miles especially breezed by as it felt like she started amping up her pace and I still managed to keep up with her. Those last six to seven miles were the best six to seven miles race miles I experienced this year. Aside from taking in the race that curved in and out of a lot of new development in Fargo and West Fargo, it felt flatout awesome to maintain a solid race pace, and not get passed by a single person in the final half of the race while managing to pass roughly 30 other competitors in that same stretch. I had to say thank you to the girl I was following during the race and we had a fun little chat about the race and other races we did this year in the finishing area for a bit. I dug the mini's form of finisher medals in the form of hockey pucks, which is fitting since the event center hosting it is the home of the minor league hockey team, the Fargo Force.

I ended up finishing with a time of 1:52:11, which beat my old PR I set at the Wild Hog by a minute and fourteen seconds. I placed 162nd out of 528 overall in the half. I felt great about my performance, and I guess the trick must be going into it coming off work the night before and just a couple hours of sleep. I had a great day to celebrate afterwards and met up with a couple of Fargo friends I have not seen in awhile for lunch, and meeting up later on that evening with a few awesome coworkers for drinks and dinner. It resulted in me passing out nice and full and buzzed and happy. A great way to feel after hitting this goal. I am signed up for one more race this weekend, and there are a couple more before the end of the year that I am still debating on signing up for so stay tuned here for future race logs!

5K

UND Autism - 4/20/13 - 26:22 - 23rd out of 74
Arthritis Foundation Zombie Run - 10/12/13 - 29:06 - 1st Place Survivor, 2nd out of 67 overall
Uffda Mud Run - 9/7/13 - ??:?? - Finished
Color Run - 9/21/13 - ??:?? - Finished

10k

Hillsboro Run - 6/13/13 - 50:17 - 23rd out of 55
Dewey Memorial - 6/1/13 - 50:21 - 15th out of 56
Firecracker - 7/4/13 - 53:13 - 42nd out of 92
Frozen Feat - 2/16/13 - 53:57 - 50th out of 108
TRF Pioneer - 9/14/13 - Disqualified

Half Marathon

Fargo Mini - 10/19/13 - 1:52:11 - 162nd out of 528
Grand Forks Wild Hog - 9/28/13 - 1:53:25 - 184th out of 649
Fargo Rocks - 5/18/13 - 2:02:48 - 2062nd out of 5526

Bonus Resolution 4 - Finish 12 Races in a Year - 11 Down

I hate zombies. I am not talking about being terrified of them, I am speaking of not being a fan of the zombie fad that has been going around this past decade or so. My brother has been a huge zombie nut for quite a few years, and I made the mistake of attending a pair of zombie pub crawls in Fargo with him where both ended up being disastrous nights. I think that is one of the reasons I am not all about this zombie craze, the other being the fervor over The Walking Dead television show. You hear so much good buzz for a television show, and it makes me want to ignore it out of spite. I have never watched an episode, but I did play the Telltale developed episodic Xbox 360 game last year which I found to be quite awesome.

So yeah...zombies, when I first heard of the Zombie Run 5K taking place in town I intentionally ignored it. But a few of the people I ran The Color Run with last month are zombie fans and were forming a team again for this run, and I am all for running with friends so Derek, Brooke, Jesa, Ryan and myself hooked up to form team Zombies Ate My Neighbors. How the Zombie Run works is that you wear a pair of flags exactly like flag football back in the elementary school days, and interspersed throughout the 5K course are pairs of zombies about every third mile. Obviously they are going for your flags, if they get both of them before you finish you are "zombified" and eliminated from the final race "survivor" standing, though you are still welcomed to finish the course. One handy tip from another team before the race was to keep an eye out for zombies in piles of leaves.

Keeping up with my streak of awful weather for races carrying over from the Wild Hog half, the rain was coming down hard and this time the wind was in full gear too. Walking from the parking lot to the Choice Gym where the race was taking place at and enduring that morning's weather proved to be a bit much. It also proved to be too much for many of the 110 registered contestants, because of that field only 67 showed up for the race.

Come awful rain and wind, the race still took place. And team Awesome Classic Super Nintendo Game started off together near the back of the pack! A couple minutes into the race Ryan and I split off from Derek, Brooke and Jesa and decided we will do our best to stay together and joked that we would shove each other into the awaiting zombie horde so we could preserve our precious flags!

After about every third mile, we ran into a pair of zombies, and early on they were manageable to avoid because there were usually a pack of other runners around us to distract them, and if they got close to us a quick little juke and turning up the jets for a few seconds was enough to shake them off. For about the second half of the race though when Ryan and I made our way through most of the field and the pack thinned out it proved to be more challenging and there were at least a few times where I felt a few good tugs on my flags, but miraculously they remained on me. That was probably the only upside to the awful weather, where the rain made the flags a bit slippery to get a good grip of.

Also, for the last half of the race them zombies were getting quite crafty at hiding places that I am not accustomed to in the movies. They were hiding in cars and behind fences and trees. It got to the point where anything I suspected of being a hiding spot for the last half of the race I just sped up momentarily and bolted in hopes of having the zombies decide I was not even worth pursuing. That and working in tandem with Ryan was a nice strategy where we pointed out where we saw potential zombies and tried juking in opposite directions to throw them off. It paid off for both of us because we both finished with both of our flags. Derek unfortunately lost both of his after an illegal zombie double team. Brooke lost one of hers and Jesa kept both. So overall our team kept 7 of its 10 flags, not bad!

Ryan and I ran into a little bit of bad luck during the race though. Good thing I decided not to wear headphones this time. Ryan and I were following another runner as we went past another checkpoint, and about a good block after we past the checkpoint we heard one of the race checkpoint coordinators yelling at us to come back and take a different turn we ran past. We lost two blocks and had to catch back up with the field, and we figured we lost a good minute that way. Finally, during the last stretch going back to the gym as we approached the parking lot at Choice I could not remember which parking lot entrance we came out of at the beginning, and there were no arrows pointing at which one to take with no coordinators nearby to point us where to go, so I did not want to risking cutting the race short and getting disqualified again so I took the longest way around the parking lot, and according to my GPS tracker Ryan and I ran an extra quarter mile all together. Thankfully, the people manning the time clock at the finish had mercy on us and saw us miss the turn, but said not to worry about since it was not labeled and no one was there to point where to go.

I finished about ten seconds ahead of Ryan as he started to slow down in the final stretch and he told me to finish ahead of him. With about a mile left we saw no one in front of us and we kept thinking there were at least a few more people who started off really fast and probably finished quite a bit faster than us. We waited up for Derek, Brooke and Jesa to finish and gave high fives all around. We warmed up inside the gym with some post race refreshments and decided to wait around for the awards to be given out because Ryan and I were thinking maybe we cracked the top 5 or at least got a top time in our age bracket.

When they went down the Top 3 Zombie Survivors, I was surprised when I heard Ryan's name as second place, and then I realized that I was going to be first. It felt weird, I guess I did not have a big victory rush because they did not inform either Ryan and I about this as we crossed the finish line so I did not have that awesome Hollywood moment at the finish line. It still felt pretty good though to win a race, as I thought that day would never, ever happen. It is worth mentioning my own Roger Maris asterisk however. Technically, I won the race, although there was one person that finished ahead of me but he got both of his flags taken from the zombie horde and thus he was "eliminated" from the official standings. Ryan and I won the best time in our 20-29 male and 30-39 male brackets respectively too.

Since it was a smaller race, and more focused on fundraising there was no big trophy for the finish, but I did get a first place branded medal and a Zombie Run themed tshirt, hat and mug for my efforts! I may have had to go through the most bitter weather yet and endure some crazy zombies in the process, but I can finally lay claim to winning a race! I had no idea I had this in me, but am very grateful it did happen and that I was there to take in the moment with a few friends at my side. Only one more race to go before I hit 12 for the year! I am officially registered for a race the last weekend of this month, but if things go my way I may make it out to one more this weekend too.

5K

UND Autism - 4/20/13 - 26:22 - 23rd out of 74
Arthritis Foundation Zombie Run - 10/12/13 - 29:06 - 1st Place Survivor, 2nd out of 67 overall
Uffda Mud Run - 9/7/13 - ??:?? - Finished
Color Run - 9/21/13 - ??:?? - Finished

10k

Hillsboro Run - 6/13/13 - 50:17 - 23rd out of 55
Dewey Memorial - 6/1/13 - 50:21 - 15th out of 56
Firecracker - 7/4/13 - 53:13 - 42nd out of 92
Frozen Feat - 2/16/13 - 53:57 - 50th out of 108
TRF Pioneer - 9/14/13 - Disqualified

Half Marathon

Fargo Rocks - 5/18/13 - 2:02:48 - 2062nd out of 5526
Grand Forks Wild Hog - 9/28/13 - 1:53:25 - 184th out of 649

Bonus Resolution 2 - Get Back Into Baseball - Season Wrap-Up

Right now baseball is in the midst of the postseason. Unfortunately the Twins are not in it. They had a disastrous year finishing 66-96, which was 27 game behind first place in their division. I had a heck of a year keeping up with them though. I managed to keep track of every game they played this season thanks to the handy MLB At Bat app on my phone and kept up with daily stats and game write ups. They had a promising first several weeks of the season when they managing to hover around the .500 mark until they hit a few slumps they were unable to battle out of. I think their best part of the season was the first two and a half to three weeks after the all-star break where I think they only lost just a few games during that stretch.

For the most part, I managed to stick with my goal and catch at least one Twins game a week on television whether it be at a restaurant or sports bar, or watching cable at a friend's or family member's house. There were probably a few weeks where I missed a game, but there were also at least a few weeks to make up for it where I caught two games that week. And when I thought it was not going to happen, I finally made it out to Target Field once this year to catch a Twins game. It just happened to take place on September 30, the final game of the regular season against the Indians. As luck would have it, I was going down to the Twin Cities that weekend with a couple friends to catch the Nine Inch Nails concert the night before. The concert was a blast by the way, and NIN did not disappoint! I checked the schedule and was ecstatic to find their last game of the season was going on at home the next day.

I did not think my two friends were going to go since they are not sports fans and was planning on going to the game alone since I drove down met up with them separately. But when I brought up I was going they said they would go along with me to my surprise. I probably should have went alone because one friend kept making fun of the game while we were there and kept getting under my skin throughout the game. Oh well, I still managed to have a semi-decent time out there, and for being a late September game, we had some lucky weather with clear bright skies and temps in the low 70s. Since I was there I had to get a overpriced beer and hot dog too! Target Field is still as magnificent as I remember from two years ago. A five star facility all around. Unfortunately the Twins lost 5-1, but I did get to see my favorite reliever Casey Fien, get an inning of action, and I was glad to see Scott Diamond get a September call up start and for the most part had a quality start, minus a trio of fielding errors in the 6th which ultimately cost the game for the Twinkies. It was also special to see All-Star closer, Glen Perkins give a big speech in front of the team before the game essentially apologizing for the lackluster season and promised to make up for it next season.

I do have some final season thoughts, just keep in mind I still do not consider myself a baseball stat junkie but am just going by my observations throughout the year and what I have read on the daily game recaps. I was bummed to see Justin Morneau traded, I understand he may not be as powerful as he once was, but he was their next best player this year behind Mauer. At least we got a decent player from the Pirates in return in Presly, and I guess I will be rooting for Morneau in the postseason with the Pirates as they are currently up 2-1. I hope Mauer makes a full recovery and does not have any unfortunate long lasting effects from his season ending concussion. I kept hearing how Morneau was never the same after his 2010 concussion, and that would be terrible if the same happens to Mauer.

I want Aaron Hicks to be given another chance in 2014 and hope he plays all next year in the Majors. He was probably called up a year too early as he really struggled in the first several weeks of the season. I believe he finished with around a .198 average, but minus his atrocious first several weeks and I bet he was probably batting right around .230ish until he got called down in July. I believe the only main regular starters that lasted all season were Ryan Doumit and Brian Dozier. Doumit had a couple of hot streaks during the year, but the last month or two of the season he appeared to be in a slump, and during the game I was at he kept striking out. Dozier had a real strong last few months and came through with some clutch homers and a lot of big hits.

I hope the Twins keep Florimon as my underdog pick. I cannot explain it, but I feel there is something there and he can be at least somewhat reliable for getting on base once a game. As far as pitching goes, my vote for best/least worst starter goes to Kevin Correia. I saw him pitch his way out of a few nasty jams, and have at least several strong performances this year. Reading some of his post game interviews got me on his side too where he owned up to his mistakes but had at least in my view justifiable explanations for them. I hope Diamond sticks in the rotation too all of next season. He just kept getting bad breaks this year after a standout rookie season. The games I saw him pitch he usually looked strong through the 4th, but would usually collapse in the 5th or 6th. I hope Worley gets his act together too, the Twins were really banking on him after they acquired him from Philly, but he whiffed big time. It sounded like he had a strong second half of the season in the minors until he got hurt, so maybe that got him a reality check and he will have a decent 2014 start. The Twins have an awesome bullpen and I absolutely hope they stick with at least Duensing, Burton and especially Fien and Perkins.

That does it for this baseball season. I will still keep up with the Pirates in the post season and root for Morneau, but I am glad I managed to stick with the Twins all year, and am looking forward to doing it again next season!