Piece of Cake 10k Race Report

This is kind of late but I wanted to write something anyway. The Half Marathon report later in the week when I get all the results and find a few pictures.

On the 21rst I ran another race with the Montgomery County Road Runners club. I wanted to a race the weekend before the half marathon to confirm I was in shape to meet my time goals. The goal for this was to run something in the 44 minute range. The race took place at Seneca Creek Park which is a lot of rolling hills, similar to what Atlanta was going to be so it would work as an even better tune up race.

 

http://www.trainingpeaks.com/sw/CAJIQ3WF3QCCRCWNMN2TLZ2Q6M 

The race went well, I ran exactly 45 minutes which is a 7:13 and is what I was shooting for. I ran the first half relatively conservative and then picked things up the last mile. Based on race pace prediction calculators it says I should be able to run the 1:40:00 half marathon I was shooting for. Check back later this week to see if I hit got it.

As another note I moved into first place in my age group in the season long points race as part of the MCRRC race series. At this point it’s due to the fact that I have run more races then the other people in my age group because several of the people I am ahead of are much faster then me. But I’ll take it for now.

Really?

Here’s an article I came across on CNN that’s make’s you go really? WTF was this guy thinking thinking. Here is a snip of the first half of the article

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — Ernie Casillas lived the good life as he doled out millions of dollars in loans in California. The former banker drove fancy cars and took extravagant vacations.

But with the banking industry in crisis, his job is gone — as is his lavish lifestyle. Desperate for work, he recently swallowed his pride and posted a message on Craigslist: "Unemployed I need a job."

"It took a lot for me to put that ad on Craigslist, because I had to change what I was before," he said, breaking down in tears. "I wasn’t this rich little yuppie anymore, driving expensive cars, having expensive suits. I’m in this just like everybody else looking for work. It humbles you. This is real."

Casillas, 46, is like tens of thousands of out-of-work Americans turning to Craigslist, the online classified ad Web site where people can post information for free.

The site says it has 50 million users, most of them in the United States. More than 2 million new jobs are posted each month, according to Craigslist.

Many have begun posting messages of desperation seeking work. Some post their résumé and phone number; others swap goods online. iReport: Tell us how you’re getting by

Casillas said it was a humbling experience to finally post his message on the site. Once responsible for bringing in $400,000 in cash per month for a credit union, he has been out of work for the past four months and now lives with his mother in suburban Los Angeles

He had tried newspaper ads and other online job sites, with no great success. Then one night, he posted a simple message on Craigslist.

"I have over 20 years of experience in sales, telephone sales in a call center, customer service, administrative assistant, cash handling, teller, and many more skills and abilities. Great personality, very friendly, hard worker, very responsible," it said. "I will be happy to e-mail you my resume. I need a job now. Please call my cell phone."

Casillas said he teared up when he first began typing the message — that his life had come unraveled so hard and so fast. But ultimately, he said, he decided, "I’m just going to put it out there. I’m not going to be embarrassed. I’m just going to tell the whole world: I’m unemployed, and I need a job today. And the response was great."

"My phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing with people interested in my ability to think outside the box," he said, adding that he now has three good leads on potential jobs.

The whole experience has given him a dose of humility. He is a self-described former yuppie going through turbulent times. When he sees homeless people these days, he wants to help them. …

After reading the start of the article try to guess how much money was this guy this making. Remember he is a banker in LA living this lifestyle.

Now go finish the article (http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/03/12/craigslist.economy/index.html?iref=newssearch)

Really are you serious? That kind of lifestyle on that salary and a kid? 20 years of working and he’s not able to support himself through four months of employment. Right now the media likes to say how everything is the evil bank CEO faults but I think the bigger problem was millions of people just like this clown.

Update

There is not a whole lot of interesting things going on right now just work and working out. I did start swimming multiple times a week again. I decided to go with the pool near work, so that means a 4:30 am alarm and I’m in the water around 5:30 to make it to work by 7.

I wasn’t able to get my long rides in this weekend because it was rainy and cold, I could only deal with 90 minutes, and 30 minutes on the bike trainer this weekend. This weekend looks like it should be nice so I might try a new route in Frederick MD. I’m also looking at doing a 10k on Saturday, I haven’t made up my mind but I’m thinking about it.

I guess one interesting thing is I have been having car trouble the last few weeks. It’s the same problem I have been having since was in Atlanta over two years ago. I’ve taken it multiple dealerships and no one has really solved the problem. I think it is about time for a new car. I’m leaning towards getting an Accord, I was thinking about the Honda Element. It seems like it would fit my bike easily but I’m not sold on it yet. I’m leaning towards the accord but will probably still test drive an Element.

Awesome Run

I had a really good run today. (Workout Link) The weather great and the change over in clocks last weekend meant I didn’t have to run in the dark which was really nice.

It was a 25 min warm up and the 15 minutes at marathon pace, 10 minutes easy, and 2×10 min at half-marathon pace and then easy running for 15 minutes to get to an hour and a half. My legs didn’t feel to good after the my run yesterday but everything felt great today and was able to hit all my paces with ease. I’m looking forward to the ING half marathon in a few weeks and with another solid long run next week my goal of sub 1:40 should be very doable.

 

Brake Cable Installation

With the brakes installed the next step was to attach the cables.  This starts with running the cable through the shifter levers like shown in the picture. There is a ball at the end of the cable and it threads through that little ball and stays in place.

The cable it threaded through the top of the brake and there is a little bolt to keep the cable tight.

 

You can sort of see it in these two pictures how it attaches

To adjust the width the separation between the two pads you use the “barrel adjuster” which is the little black tab at the top. This makes changes in the cable tension and can move the pads closer together.

The pads can also get adjusted with 4mm allen wrench and should be set so they are a few mm below the tire.

This was one of the steps that took a few minutes for me to figure out. I wasn’t to difficult bit I had never dealt with cables and the cable cutters I have aren’t that great. It took a lot of time to make sure I had the cable length correct before I cut it and some trouble getting smooth cuts on the cable housing but I figured things out and got them working.

Long Ride

I had a 3 hour ride and the schedule for today. And it was easy to get out the door and do this because we went from this on Monday:

To sunny and the low 70’s today.

I tried to take a couple of pictures during my ride. A few hours into the ride I stopped to eat my PB&J sandwich by a horse farm. As soon as I took the sandwich out of my jersey pocket the horses became very interested and came right up to the fence.

So I threw them a piece of the sandwich and here they are trying to get it.

 

Off in the background you could hear dogs barking which turned out to be a big fox hunt. I saw all the horse trailers at another farm latter in my ride to confirm this. When I started riding again less then a mile down the road I saw a group six people on horses coming back towards the farm.

That would explain why the horses got really excited and ran back towards the driveway. You can see them behind the trees in this picture. I should I have gotten a video of them running around but it didn’t occur to me at the time.

And here are some pictures of what most of the roads I ride on look like:

 

And here’s a couple I took about a mile from home.

And here is a shot of my Garim map/directions/powermeter thing. It’s not in map mode in the picture. I rode a route I am very familiar with so I didn’t need that feature today.

I was so tired when I got done with this ride I just wanted to lay down. And to cap of the day I had a great lunch with the goodness that is Chipotle.

 

 

Here is a link to the workout for anyone that’s interested in seeing the numbers and map from my ride. Overall this was a good ride and I am doing a lot more

Really?

WFT Rhode Island? (Article) This has to be one of the dumbest things I have heard.

Embarrassed

This week was the start of ramping up the training volume which includes swimming 3-4 times a week again. I’m not sure if I want to swim in the morning near work or in the afternoon near home so I’m going to try both out for a while. Tuesday I went to the Germantown Aquatics Center.

This is one of my favorite pools to swim at because it’s so nice but I was worried it was going to be really crowded. It turns out the RMSC uses most of the pool until 7:30 but two lanes are open so I was able to swim.

I am not a fast swimmer and getting back in the swing of swimming made me even slower but yesterday I got to find out how embarrassingly slow I am. I was swimming right next to what looked like the slowest lane of the swim team made up what I would guess were nine year olds or younger. And it wasn’t even close to the speed I was swimming at. If I was the last person in their lane I would guess I could hang to someone’s feet for 150 yards and that’s about it. It was amazing how much more efficient their swim strokes looked. I have a lot of work left to do with my swimming.

Cost Overruns

I found a Washington Post Article about a proposed law to avoid cost overruns on weapons systems. You can also find more here.

It would create a “Director of Independent Cost Assessment” and essentially isolate the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics so that branch requesting the project is no longer involved in the costing. They would have more authority to get costs from contractors and things like that.

Here a couple of highlights I pulled from Levin’s web page:

“…requiring DOD to: (1) assess the extent to which the Department has in place the systems engineering capabilities needed to ensure that key acquisition decisions are supported by a rigorous systems analysis and systems engineering process; and (2) establish organizations and develop skilled employees needed to fill any gaps in such capabilities.”

At least there will be demand for what I do.

 

Here’s one that I’m not to sure about:

Section 105. Role of Combatant Commanders. In a February 2009 report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended that the acquisition process be modified to allow combatant commanders (COCOMs) more influence and ensure that their long-term needs are met. The GAO report states: “a COCOM-focused requirements process could improve joint war-fighting capabilities by ensuring that the combatant commander – the customer – is provided the appropriate level of input regarding the capabilities needed to execute their missions rather than relying on the military services – the suppliers – to drive requirements.” Section 105 would address this problem by requiring the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) to seek and consider input from the commanders of the combatant commands in identifying joint military requirements.”

And one more:

“As a result, DOD officials often fail to consider the impact of requirements decisions on the acquisition and budget processes, or to make needed trade-offs between cost, schedule and requirements on major defense acquisition programs. Section 201 would address this problem by requiring consultation between the budget, requirements and acquisition stovepipes – including consultation in the joint requirements process – to ensure the consideration of trade-offs between cost, schedule, and performance early in the process of developing major weapon systems”

 

 

Here are my thoughts

1. I think it could lead to  the elimination of anything high risk/ high reward in a major weapons systems.
2. Congress is will be more involved in the oversight and in my opinion that’s never a good thing
3. So much of the cost overruns are related to project funding. If you siad you wanted 200 F-22’s and now only want 50 of course those 50 will cost more per unit the R&D cost didn’t go away.
4. I don’t think new legislation is needed just enforce what is on the books
5. Until the DoD can get it’s requirements definition and project scope right the first time cost overruns will happen.

 

The simple solution is for the government to correctly define and scope the project with a fixed minimum order sized locked into place. The contractors submit per unit prices for that min order size and that’s how much they get it.

Snow Storm

Last night was the first real snow storm of the year. It resulted in somewhere near 6 inches of snow so I worked from home today. Here are some pictures of the snow.

 

The roads were cleared and in good shape by the afternoon so I went for a run. Afterwards I decided it would be a good idea to make a snow angle.

Thinking about it:

In the act:

Success: