First Half Marathon ....

some other personal firsts and personal records.

First of all HAPPY THANKSGIVING - my first American Thanksgiving as an American.

Of course it turns out I am not doing the "traditional" American thing as today was The Weather Channel Atlanta Marathon/Half-Marathon. This was my first half-marathon and as such a new personal record for distance run. I finished the 13.1 miles in 2:09:30 - a good bit slower than my normal pace but not having run for 8 weeks because of my ankle I will not complain. My running friend Blanche did the full Marathon and set her own personal record running the 26.2 miles in just around 4:24. Of course she was very excited about that.

It has been a pretty great trip so far. We drove from Virginia to Greensboro, NC on Tuesday and stayed with some friends of Blanche. A nice dinner and hung out at Harry's place for the night. He has a great dog, Mel, who is just a bundle of fun. She is a terrier mix, I think Airedale and Jack Russell. We left Wednesday AM to complete the drive to Atlanta, The traffic was HORRIBLE and we were in fact worried that we would not make it to Atlanta in time to pick up our race registration. We did make it - obviously.

So the rest of today will be relaxing and then making a pseudo-Thanksgiving dinner (chicken, rice and veggies). Tomorrow we plan to sight-see a bit before heading home Saturday. Hopefully our legs will hold up for walking :-)

Have a GREAT holiday

---- cu

Next Big Race .....

So this week will be an interesting one - not only is it Thanksgiving week which means a couple of days off - but I am heading to Atlanta to run a half-marathon. This will be my longest race to date.

The motivation for the race is a good friend of mine, Blanche, who is a frequent marathoner (is that a word? I guess so as I did not get a spell check error), wanted to run it and she figured it was a drive down and asked if I wanted to run the marathon as well. I acquiesced to the half as it seemed the next logical step for me in racing. So we are driving down to Atlanta Tuesday afternoon so we can get ready for the race on Thursday morning. I am a little bit anxious as it has been a few weeks since I have run after my adventures on Old Rag but I am feeling great so I think the half will be a perfect race.

I will make sure to post an update from Atlanta - it may be short as I may post it from my cell - depending on if I can get regular internet access.

Have a GREAT week ---- cu

Grades ....

It is that time of year ..... the weather has cooled off a bit ... ok more than a bit ... and the first semester is over for the girls.

The girls received their report cards the end of last week and they all did FANTASTIC. Sam brought home 2 A+'s, 4 A's and 2 B+'s (in Honors Science and Honors History). I do not remember grading when I was in elementary school but these days those grades are all 90 and above. Kris had all A+'s except for an A in Algebra 2. What a way to start off her first year in High School. Tika continues to amaze as well - 2 A+'s, 2 A's, a B+ and one C in English. She only had a couple of grading elements in English for the semester and she already has bumped up that grade - but again - a C is above 77. I know she wants to bring that up to at least a B though. Of course I was very proud of them all especially since they all are doing advanced classes for their grades - Sam has 3 honors courses and pre-Algebra; Kris has one honors course, pre-AP History and Algebra 2 and Tika has AP History along with Computer Math.

Keep up the good work girls :-)

---- cu

November Karate Tournament

The girls were having a great time yesterday at the local karate tournament. It was not a big tournament but the girls all had good competition in their divisions. As usual the tournament was held at Broad Run High School. All the girls competed in all events - which was great as Kris had been reluctant to compete in Kumite since her Nationals in Miami when she took a couple of nasty punches. We were all very proud to see her get back into the ring to spar.

Tika did have a small issue that I was worried would throw her off a bit. As you all know Tika is well "decorated" with ear piercings. Honestly I have lost count but she is always responsible with them. Well yesterday two of her piercings could not be removed. The rules of the tournament say no earrings so even though no one would have said anything, because of the circumstance, she was pretty distraught about it. She eventually decided to leave them in and compete. I was a bit worried that the situation was throwing her off when she missed a piece of her weapons kata - but the trooper she is she recovered well and because she kept composed she did win the event.

The end results - Sam brought home Bronze medals in Kobudo and Kata and a Silver in Kumite. Kris brought home 3 Silver medals and Tika swept her division with 3 Golds. Of course I am extremely proud of all of them - Sam for her tenacity, Kris for getting back into the ring and Tika for refocusing herself and overcoming. As soon as I get some pics I will post them.

Have a great week ---- cu

Another Proud Day ....

It is always hard for me to write that title line, especially with my kids as I am proud each and every day of who they are, what they do and how they have grown. Today however was a big day for Tika. Tika is in the running to attend the 2009 Summer Residential Governor's School Program for Visual and Performing Arts. The program is one whereby students submit their artwork and are adjudicated first at a county level and then at a state level. After these adjudications students are evaluated to determine who will be selected to attend a month of school during the summer. The program that Tika would be in would have her at Christopher Newport University.

So with all that information as to what the program is - today Tika found out that she is one of 11 students in Loudoun County to be selected to move on to the State competition which will be held in January. She, of course, is very excited. She is also worried as she figured out she will need to learn to do laundry. I will try and get some photos of her work so we can post them here.

Keep your fingers crossed for her. She has a great amount of talent which we hope the judges will recognize.

--- cu

NASA and Palo Alto ....

I had the pleasure of visiting NASA at Moffett Field in California for a day this past week. Moffett Field is located at the south end of San Francisco Bay, near Palo Alto. It is interesting not only for the NASA facility but also for the hangars that are on base. Hangar #1 was used for dirigibles and is so large fog sometimes forms near the ceiling. Today Google has a couple of aircraft that they keep on base. They pay NASA for the right as well as allowing NASA to have some scientific equipment kept on board.

While I was in Palo Alto I swung by a bike store. The store itself caught my eye but when I walked in they had a bike on display that debuted in the 2008 Tour de France. It is manufactured by Look. Talking to one of the guys that worked there he said it was not for sale but as equipped would run around $12,000. Of course I had to take pictures. The interesting thing is how the handlebars are engineered to be so integrated into the frame. There is very little space between any of the components. It was a fantastic looking bike.

Speaking of bikes - it has been a great few days to ride. I was out Friday and Saturday and hope to get out tomorrow. Yesterday when I was out riding I did hit a pothole and blew my back tire. Fortunately, since I was in Oakton, I had a spare tube and cartridge.

Looking forward to this week - Tika has her art evaluation tomorrow for the Governor's school tomorrow. Her work is excellent - I am sure she will do well and I will keep everyone up to date.

Hope everyone has a great week

---- cu

Happy Halloween ---- the day after

Hope everyone had fun. I know I did. It is not many Friday nights you get to go out with your 16 year old daughter - but we both love Halloween so it was a good night for us to go to Bennett's Curse. For those of you unaware of it, Bennett's Curse is a "Haunted House" attraction in Hanover, Maryland. It is a well done event with two separate areas. The downside for the two of us is we do not scare easily - or some would say at all. Those in our group would say the latter as they were screaming and cowering while myself and Tika strolled through the event enjoying more the reaction of others.

Sam and Kris also enjoyed their own Halloween parties - Sam going trick and treating with her friend Nick and Kris at a friends party. Tika did get Sam ready by doing her make-up and think she did a GREAT job.

I of course did my own make-up - you be the judge - but a TV crew came over to film me while we were at Bennett's Curse. If I find the clip I will post it. I also carved a couple of pumpkins - one from Tika's second favourite movie and one to follow Sam's costume theme.

I hope you had as much fun as we did this Halloween. Have a GREAT weekend - it is sunny and warm here. Warm enough that yesterday was a bike day and so was today. Today was not as good as I got a flat while out riding. Thankfully I had one last CO2 cartridge - otherwise it would have been ugly as I was in Oakton which is a loooooong way from home.

I will be posting some stuff from my Palo Alto trip in the next day or so - feel free to check back

----- cu