I'm calling it

Brewer - Twins World Series. Brewers in 6. Borky if the Twins lose tonight you can blame me for jinxing your team.

Weekend Recap

Here is the weekend that was. I worked up in Oshkosh on my bridge. Thursday night I went with my brother, Jon, out for some wings and to watch the Brewer game. Friday morning, I had to meet with my boss to work on a presentation that my company was giving to the DOT. We are looking to get the contract for several construction projects. The funny thing about this presentation, since I am our #1 construction engineer, over half of the presentation was me talking about what a great engineer I am or my boss talking about what a great engineer I am. While I was out for lunch Friday afternoon, Nate called me up asking me if I wanted a ticket to the Brewers Cubs game that night. I couldn't refuse that ticket, after work I hit a liquor store a bought a flask and a 6 pack. I ended up tailgating with a bunch of strangers in the parking lot for about 45 minutes before the game. Then I met up with Nate, Tim and Julie in out seats. It was a fun game to watch and the Cubs fans around us were actually pretty decent. Saturday morning I went to my nieces' soccer games. Fortunately it worked out that both Erin and Abby were playing at the same time, so I caught half of each of their games. But while I was watching Erin, Abby scored and while I was watching Abby, Erin scored. Saturday afternoon, Nate had yet another extra ticket for the Brewers Cubs game. I couldn't turn that ticket down either. Being that I was going with Nate, Michel and Elery we didn't exactly show up right on time. Since the Brewers sucked on Saturday's game I was fine with not showing up on time, and when the Brewers did make their rallies in the 7th and 8th innings I was in my seat. After the Brewer game I was over by my brother, Dan, watching college football all night. Sunday I finally got my butt moving and got some exercise in and went for a bike ride. When I got back from biking, my nephew, Nick, cornered me and asked me why I wasn't going to his soccer game. His game was at noon and I really was set upon watching the Packer and Brewer games on TV. I did go to Nick's game, where his team got schooled 4-0. I did however guilt trip Nick into coming to one of my soccer games. I have joined back up with my old indoor team. First game starts October 22nd. I will be sure to post the schedule here. If you show up to the game, free beer. I guess that is as far as I will go with my exciting weekend. Before I get to the pictures I want to thank a couple of people. First Rebecca, for the haircut Saturday morning. Pick a date and I will buy you dinner. Also a huge thanks to Nate for the hook up on the Brewer tickets.
Here is Seth McClung closing out the game Friday night.Jared sporting my Elvis sunglasses.Josh had to get into the act as well.Erin in her game.Abby in her game.The Hardwicks at Miller Park.Here is Ryan Braun getting stuck in the ribs with a fastball.

Vitual Reality Biking

I rarely take requests from people to put stuff about them here on my blog. For one thing this blog is all about me. I mean just read the title. Remember when my loyal readers asked for just pictures of M.K.A.? That didn't work out too well. If my readers want to read about someone else they can just go to that someone else's blog. But I thought that this would spark something of a debate or at least some entertaining comments so I have decided to post it here. The majority of my readers are well aware of my high school buddy, Krum. If you have never met him, you most certainly have hear me discuss him here in the past. Well Krum was the focus of an article on another blog and he asked me to post the link here.

Here you go Krum, here is your article.

I strongly suggest my loyal readers take a quick read and post your comments about his invention here. Krum is a reader of my blog and I am sure, now that I have his article up he will be checking in to see what people have to say and to see if any orders are also coming his way.

Top 10 List

This is stealing Letterman's bit but I don't care. On the heels of yesterday's post I have a new one for today.
The Top Ten Best Things About Moving Back Home.
10. A Dishwasher that works.
9. A fire pit that I can illegally spark up anytime I want.
8. Remember I forgot something inside doesn't require taking an elevator up 5 stories.
7. Being as loud as I want without neighbors complaining.
6. 5 minute commute to work.
5. High Definion Television.
4. Gas grill that fires up in seconds.
3. Fake fireplace will keep me warm at night.
2. Two words: Speed Quarters
1. Two headed shower.

A Sort of Homecoming

Within the last couple of days I have talked to a couple of my loyal blog readers. And they all seem pretty excited that I will be moving back to Milwaukee. I will be completely moved in as of Saturday, November 8th. I will be honest, I am a little excited about being back in my own place. I have mentioned it before, but it is really weird to be in your house, but none of your stuff is there. A number of people have been trying to convince me to throw a welcome home party. And I am pretty sure that I am going to have one.

Should I have a welcome home party?
	Yes, and I will tap the first beer.
	Yes, but I am not going to show up.
	No, I haven't missed you at all.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

157 Down, 5 To Go

Well the Brewers are getting down to the end of the season. I watched nearly all of the game last night. I wanted to go to bed, but I told myself that I would at least watch the bottom of the 9th. Sure enough it was worth staying up as Prince hit a walk off home run. But here is my question you my readers: With just 5 games to go and just 1 game behind the wild card lead, are the Brewers going to make the playoffs?

Will the Brewers make the playoffs?
	You bet your long balls they will.
	No way, get ready for spring training.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Mississippi Camping

This past weekend was one of the weekends I look forward to as much as any weekend the entire year. It is my annual camping trip out on an island in the Mississippi. The weather was absolutely fabulous. We had a good group of guys out there. I am just going to get to the pictures. This is Friday afternoon as I showed up at the lock and launch. That is Tim and Nate in the boat as they were coming to pick me up.Friday night we started in on the Boones Farm right away. Of course we had 10 bottles to finish off over the course of the weekend. Most of which were "Sneaky Petes". Here are Tim and Borky celebrating with bottle number 1.Something of a group photo here. From left to right, me, Doug, U2 Bob, Eric, Borky, Tim and Bob. As you can see I am standing in a hole that I spent a good half an hour digging with my feet.This is one of the larger barges that went by our campsite. We would take shots at the barges with golf balls. Of course I never hit one. I don't think I drove a ball more than 40 yards on any one swing. Doug was the winner, I think he hit 6 different barges. We also took some shots with a potato gun but those never got close. You can see Borky down by the river fishing. And also note Tim's jet ski. I took that out for a spin. I have never been on one of the old school jet skis before. It took a little getting used to. And I nearly got run over by a cabin cruiser while I was still in the learning stages of riding the jet ski. And just to help stay in shape, Saturday afternoon I swam across the river and back. It was a bit cold but I managed. It is also something of a challenge swimming across with the strong current trying to push you down river.A requirement on the island that we camp on, duct tape shoes. While the island we camp out on mostly sand, it isn't the fine sand that you will find at some mexican resort. So the sand can be rather abrasive to your feet. Duct tape can be a blessing.Another group shot. Most of Saturday was spent sitting under the shade of the tree seen here on the left, and looking out on the river. We kept moving with the shade of the tree.Borky got in a bath in the river Saturday afternoon. Here he is looking rather fit.

Here is some video of the fire jumpers, Bob and Nate.

Here is Tim with our steaks. Tim and Bob did most of the cooking for our Saturday night meal. It is always the highlight of the camping trip. It was probably the best meal we have ever had on the island.

Video of the ring of fire.

Here is our Saturday night campfire with the ring of fire around it.

More fun with Bob the pyro. But he wasn't as bad as Borky who put a can of beef-a-rino in the fire without venting the can. That ended up exploding everywhere.

Prognosis Negative

Well today was the day to see what is wrong with me, or at least my knee. I have an MRI done on my left knee first thing this morning. Right afterwards I had an appointment with my doctor to discuss the MRI. Unfortunately there was a problem with their network computers and while the scanned images were not lost, they could not be brought up for the radiologist to view. I ended up waiting 2 hours while they found my images. I however could not complain about the wait as there was a number of times when I worked for Merge Technologies where I had to find lost images. I could do nothing but wait patiently. Upon finally speaking with my doctor and looking over the images, it appears that I have nothing more than Iliotibial Band Syndrome. I find it very difficult to believe that the pain I have been suffering from is little more than an inflammed / irritated tendon. Maybe "Gutless Turd" was right and I was just being a wuss. My doctor said the with a little physical therapy I should be back up and running in a month or so. And getting back to running can't happen soon enough. With all of my inactivity over the last month, I have started to put on some weight. I need to get that back under control. Anyway it is good news to hear that I should be fixed without having to go under the knife.

My Fragile State of Health

I went to the doctor today. I am no closer to knowing what is wrong with my knee. They took x-rays. The only thing he could tell me, was that my knee cap was fractured a long time ago, or I was born with a crack in my knee cap. Anyhow, I have an MRI scheduled for Monday morning. So I should know then what is wrong with my knee. In the meantime, I am spending this weekend with the boys camping on the Mississippi River.

Truck Repair

Friday after work as I was driving home, I took off from a stop sign and suddenly heard a loud purring coming from underneath my truck. It turns out that I have a fairly serious exhaust problem. See the below photo. Not having as much time on my hands to take my truck in for service, I took matters into my own hands. Here are the fruits of my labor. While it didn't fix the problem, it did help a bit and will get me through until I can get my truck serviced.

Gutless Turds

I started my blog a couple years ago. One of the main reasons I started this blog was to keep my friends and family up to date with what I am doing with my life, and hopefully I would also entertain them at the same time. In putting my life up on the internet I realized that anyone and everyone would have access to it. Anyone would also have the right to post and leave any comment that they would like. And they can also do this anonymously. I have no problem with this. Recently comments that have been made towards me, in regards to me and the injury I sustained during the ½ marathon that I completed a couple of weeks ago. I am fairly certain that the individuals, who are currently anonymous, that made these comments, know me. In fact they mostly like would fall under the umbrella of people that I call “my friends”. In all likelihood these comments were made to get a rise out of me. This is probably why their names were not signed to the post. All of this being said, I have decided that in the future any person taking a shot at me anonymously on my blog will not get a reaction or a rebuttal from me other than me calling them a gutless turd. I am certain that the two gutless turds (my guess is Tree and The General) that have called me out recently couldn’t run a ½ marathon and definitely couldn’t beat me in a ½ marathon. Unless of course somehow one of those gutless turds is Krum, in which case he would smoke me in a ½ marathon but he would still have small ears.

Football and Recovery

I didn’t do anything this weekend. I barely walked outside of my condo. I watched a lot of football on TV. Here are some observations that I made

EPSN, I think it is enough with the scroll at the bottom of the screen. Does it really need to be running the entire game? I can recall when it would pop up every ten minutes or so. Now it runs continuously. If I am a die hard fan or a casual observer, I either already know that Chris Well isn’t playing, or I don’t care. Yes, I like the score updates, but I don’t need the distraction of something running across the bottom of my screen the whole game. Maybe I just have a short attention span, but I don’t like it.

The Badgers, nice work Saturday night. They had a tough game all the way across the country. And the took care of business. It wasn’t the prettiest game I have ever watched. They did get screwed pretty bad on the fumble call that was ruled an incomplete pass. It could have been a real big call. But as good teams do, the Badgers over came a bad break and still came out on top. I can only guess what time they got back home Sunday morning, I would think somewhere around 8 in the morning.

Here is my last note on college football. I really dislike Notre Dame. If they manage to win 8 games they seem to get an automatic BCS bowl game. They get so incredibly lucky as they did Saturday. I think their day is coming and I think they will struggle to reach a .500 record this year.

Sunday morning I was popping around the TV before the Packer game. I rarely watch those pre-game shows. But as I was popping around, I tuned into NFL countdown on ESPN for 30 seconds to hear the blowhards literally yelling over one another to make their points. And if they aren’t yelling, it is the ex players on the panel yucking it up with poor grammar. What a waste of time to watch those morons. I can’t tell you how much I dislike Chris Berman.

Does anyone who watches NFL football really care which person on the defensive unit has the helmet with the radio communicator on it?

On to the Packers. This past off season was tough on Packer Nation and I don’t think that Thompson or McCarthy could have dealt with the situation any better than they did. In the end it appears that they know best on how to run a football team. I never really second guessed them. Rogers, at least so far, has proved himself to be an incredibly capable quarterback. He might not be as flashy or dramatic as the player before him, yet he always seems in control. Granted the second half was a little shaky. I was however very pleased with the outcome.

Other notes in football. Hey Minnesota, I do hope you understand that touchdowns are worth more points than field goals.

Hey Ed Hochuli, nice job screwing over San Diego. Do you think that inadvertent whistle might cost San Diego come playoff time? It basically gave Denver the game. It is a big difference for San Diego between 0-2 and 1-1, especially when that loss was within the division. This is just another reason why the NFL is the best league out there. This loss in week 2 could cost San Diego their entire season.

Finally, week 2 of the season and I am already out of my own survivor league and I have spent all of the money. Nice work.

And let me touch on the Brewers real quick. They are in absolute free fall right now, grab the rip cord. Now tied for the wild card. And how about the Cubs coming into our house and pitching a no hitter. That is like you going away on vacation where it rains the entire time, and your neighbor breaks into your house throws a party with the Hawaiian Tropics bikini team then leaving pictures of the party on the table for you to see when you come back from your miserable trip. Quite the kick in the shorts.

How is my health? Not too good. I have recovered from my cold. But my knee is in some pretty bad shape. I laid around all weekend. I was icing my knee periodically throughout the weekend. But that hasn’t really helped at all. It feels fine if I am not walking on it. But once I start walking, it feels like someone is sticking a knife right into my knee from the outside. On a scale of 1-10 (ten being giving birth) it is about a 4 whenever I walk. I have a doctor’s appointment this Thursday.

Still Sick

Yep I am still sick. I don't want to be at work. Right now I feel like how the Brewers are playing. I will be honest I am worried about them making the playoffs. I have nothing else to add. Have a good weekend.

Knee Follow Up

A couple things I want to touch on today. First I am ill today. I feel like crap. Yesterday was sort of a long day for me. The contractors on my project decided to pour concrete at 3:30 in the afternoon. That lasted until 5:30. I didn't get home until 6:30. I am coming down with a cold and my knee is still hurting me. I might actually look into getting an MRI done on it and think about getting it fixed. But last night I got home and had just a pounding headache. I grabbed a quick bite to eat. Took a long shower. It is amazing how a shower can make you feel better. Then I went right to bed. I woke up at 11:00 in the evening still with a headache and today isn't much better. I have been blowing snot rockets all morning. I checked the Neil Diamond website and the concert that was suppose to take place this Friday has again been moved to November 4th. So that clears up my weekend to do nothing.

As requested here are some medical photos of the knee and lateral meniscus. And here is a link to give you some more information about the lateral meniscus.

And lastly, I am sure you all know what today is, September 11. Without a doubt the most pivotal day in our country's history in the lat 50 years. I think I can say that. And a day that none of us will ever forget. I don't recall if I talked about this last year or not, but I can remember exactly where I was. I was working for the DOT out on construction on the Highway 57 expansion project watching earth movers form up an intersection. I was listening to it all on the radio.

Wednesday

Good Wednesday to all of my blog readers. Here is the thing. I blew my wad on my Monday morning post. I have nothing else to talk about. The Packers won. That is a good thing. That officially knocks Borky out of the Gyro contest. Borky didn't have the Packers winning a single game. Quickly turning to the Brewers, not good. It is nice that everyone else is losing as well, but come on. They just lost two close games at home. Tough to watch. Hopefully I will have more to talk about tomorrow.

M.K.A. Bucky and The Brew Crew

It was a pretty busy weekend for me. However that needs to change. Friday I went to see a physical therapist to take a look at my knee. Her diagnosis is either severe tendinitis or a torn lateral meniscus. Based on how I felt this morning I am leaning towards the meniscus. Probably not a good thing. But we decided to give it a couple weeks and see how things feel. Friday night I went to the opening game of the Whitewater Football season. I met up with the Shermans in the parking lot and we tailgated then headed into the game to see M.K.A. in action. It was a much closer game than I thought. The final outcome was 24-9. I was convinced into doing push ups after each score by Whitewater. So 24 push ups wasn't too bad, although there was a guy in the same row as me who told my cousin, Pocahontas, that he thought I wasn't going to make it. Everyone was rather pleased with the outcome except my uncle who wanted Whitewater to kick a field goal with 20 seconds remaining. I have thought about this and come to the conclusion that my uncle is totally wrong in his opinion. Please follow me here. I understand that there was only 20 seconds left, but it is possible, not likely, but possible that the kick could get blocked returned for a touchdown, 2 point conversion, on side kick recovered, hail mary, 2 point conversion and Whitewater loses. That is 3 plays in 20 seconds. Could happen. Taking a knee and giving the other team the ball all but secures victory and takes even the slightest chance of a loss out of the picture. Sorry Sherman, but after thinking about it Whitewater did the right thing.
After the game M.K.A. had a house party at his place. I was Frank the Tank at the party. The oldest person there by 10 years. Then we went to a bar downtown for a bit. At 1:45 Saturday morning I dropped M.K.A. and Katie off at M.K.A.'s place. It was at this point that I was at a cross roads. The Shermans had been trying all evening to get me to go to the Badger game with them Saturday afternoon. I had the Brewer game to go to Saturday night and as I was driving to my brother's place I realized I had no real good excuse not to go to the Badger game later that morning. Rather than wake up early, I just decided to head straight to Madison. I arrived at my buddy, Joe's, house at 4 in the morning. I had left him a voicemail but didn't want to wake him up by ringing the doorbell, so I just went back out on his deck and slept on this sofa deck chair. At around 6 in the morning, Joe got my voicemail, came downstairs and let me into the house. Let that be a lesson to all of you, I can show up at any time any where. I am highly unpredictable. I met the Shermans down at Big Ten Pub around 10:00 in the morning. Shortly after the kickoff I made my way down to glorious Camp Randall and was able to relieve a poor student of his student section ticket. $10 for a student section seat. It is just too easy. Being that the Badgers fell behind early it made the game all that more exciting, at least for a little while. I finally tracked down Tom Brady and Pocahontas in the student section just before Marshall scored their second and final touchdown. I left the game about halfway through the fourth quarter and caught a cab back to Joe's place.
I followed Joe to Milwaukee and we met Preston at my old house. Then we proceeded down to the parking lot to tailgate. We were a bit mellow while tailgating, but then Nate showed up. And while we didn't get too crazy Nate was in full story mode. Anyone who has been around Nate when he is in story mode knows how entertaining this can be. And I have to admit, it was good to have story mode Nate around for a night. We didn't get to our seats until the 4th inning. And it was a good game to watch. After the game, Preston ditched us and Nate and I went out for a drink. I ended up staying at Nate's that night and headed back home to Appleton, first thing in the morning. I spent all of Sunday on the couch watching football and nursing my knee. All of that running around really took it's toll on my knee. While it was a fun and eventful weekend, in the future I need to make better decisions concerning my health and maybe take things a little easier. I realize that my brain is still young, but my body has a lot of miles on it. And I had been contemplating going to the Packer game tonight, but based on how I feel, that just is not in my best interests. However, there is still an excellent chance that I head up to Green Bay Friday night and attempt to scalp some Neil Diamond tickets. Anyhow enough of my rambling, here are the photos from the weekend.
While we are tailgating for the Whitewater game, two girls from the gymnastics team came by selling raffle tickets. I told them I would buy some if they did hand stands. I wish I had gotten M.K.A.'s address before the game because there is a chance that I would have had a couple of the gymnastics team over for the party. Not likely, but a chance. For the future, M.K.A. is at 1128 Carriage Way. I think that is right.
My aunt Marilyn pounding down the Boones Farm. Because no tailgate party with the Shermans is complete without Boones Farm.
Here is M.K.A. doing what M.K.A. does and that is "kick ass", his words not mine.
After the game at the bar M.K.A. continued "kicking ass" by taking me on in arm wrestling. You can see that M.K.A. is barely trying. Oddly enough, he lost to me. And it really wasn't that hard either.
Here are Pocahontas and Katie arm wrestling. Tom Brady in the back ground.
Saturday morning the Shermans at the Big Ten Pub. The view of one of Bucky's touchdowns as seen from the student section.Here is what is one of the greatest college football traditions of all time. Jump Around.

Here are Tom Brady, Pocahontas, Justin, P.O.E., M.K.A. and Katie. This was just as I was leaving to go and meet Joe. You can see M.K.A. is still a bit salting from getting his nachos knocked out of his hands. When it happened, he had a bit of Roid Rage going on. Relax, they were on $4 nachos.

This was the final pitch of the Brewer Game Saturday night.Some quick thank yous to people who made my weekend what it was. Jon and Julie, Joe and Nate for allowing me to sleep at their houses. The Shermans for inviting me to both football games. Mom and Dad for the pizza brats. The dumb alcoholic freshman for selling me his Badger ticket. Joe for inviting me to the Brewer Game. Nate for the Brewer tickets. Bubs for ditching me. If I am missing anyone, I apologize for not acknowledging you here, but thank you for whatever you did.

Half Marathon Follow Up

It has been nearly a week since my run and I have not recovered very well. I have a lot of pain on the outside of my knee and under my knee cap if I am walking for more than a couple minutes. I am going to the doctor today to have them take a look at it. Best case scenerio, they just cut it off today. Here is a picture that Julie took right after the race.I was packing my clothes for this weekend and I had yet to unpack from last weekend. I had this shirt and these shorts in one of the pockets of my bag. When I unzipped it, well let me just say, that was pretty ripe. It was like smelling salt. I will give you an update after I see my doctor. You know, when a horse has a bad leg, they shoot it. The horse, not the leg.

Packer Prediction

In all of my excitement of posting the Gyro contest, I forgot to post my own prediction. I was looking back at last years picks and realized that I did a game by game break down. This year I am picking the record for the Packers 9-7 and working backwards determining which games they will win. Here is how I see this year breaking down.

Week 1 vs. Minnesota
Win. Minnesota sucks and Borky, K-Mart and Myra are just too proud to admit it. They have no quarterback. (1-0)

Week 2 at Detriot
Win. Detroit just is not a good team. They will never win with Matt Millen running the show. I hope he never gets fired. (2-0)

Week 3 vs. Dallas
Loss. The Pack never wins in big D. It will be close, but still a loss. (2-1)

Week 4 at Tampa Bay
Win. The Bucs defense is just too old. This game the Pack will rush for over 200 yards. (3-1)

Week 5 vs. Atlanta
Win. The rookie quarterback for Atlanta gets sacked 7 times and throws 3 picks, one for a touchdown. (4-1)

Week 6 at Seattle
Loss. Holgren finally gets a victory over his old team. I hate to say it but it will happen. Last second field goal. (4-2)

Week 7 vs. Indianapolis
Loss. This game is over before is starts. Manning throws for 5 Touchdowns. (4-3)

Week 8 bye
Loss. Some how we will lose the bye week. (4-3)

Week 9 at Tennessee
Loss. This game is full of turnovers. Very low scoring. Afterwards you will look back as a game we should have won. The Packers dominate the statistics but still end up with a loss. (4-4)

Week 10 at Minnesota
Loss. Again turnover kill the Pack in this game. Minnesota scores a defensive touchdown and Peterson runs for 150. (4-5)

Week 11 vs. Chicago
Loss. Just like the last couple of years, the Bears and Packers win at each others house. (4-6)

Week 12 at New Orleans
Win. Another hurricane comes to town, it is Arron Rodgers who has his best game of the year. 300 yards and 3 touchdowns. Brett Favre will throw 3 picks in his game on this day and comparisons will continue. (5-6)

Week 13 vs. Carolina
Loss. This game will be like the Tennessee game, the Pack should have won but somehow this didn't. (5-7)

Week 14 vs. Houston
Win. The Packers defense wins this game. (6-7)

Week 15 at Jacksonville
Win. Packers win with a late field goal. (7-7)

Week 16 at Chicago
Win. Orton and Grossman each throw 2 picks. The game isn't even close. (8-7)
Week 17 vs. Detriot
Win. A win here gives the Packers the division. With some much on the line and playing at home, the game isn't even close. A big blow out and it snows 4 inches during the game. Snow globe game number 2. (9-7)

The Half Marathon

I saw a good portion of my readers this past weekend, or at least I think I did. So this may be a repeat. Before I get into how the half marathon went for me, I would like to tell you a little story that relates to the half marathon. Mid way through this summer I was at my sister's house. My nephew, Jared, had just signed up for football which started in August. The coach sent out an off season exercise program for each player to follow leading up to the first practice. I saw this schedule and said that I would help Jared out with his training. The sheet said that on the first day of practice they would perform the following drills: Push ups for a minute, sit ups for a minute, a 40 yard dash, a 20 yard dash backwards, and a 1/2 mile run. Every time I stopped by my sister's this summer I went through and did these drills with Jared. He did OK with all of these except the 1/2 mile run. Every time we did the 1/2 mile run, he would quit and walk after 2 minutes. It was the fifth time I had stopped by over the summer to train with Jared. He had been telling me that he could do the run without walking. So we went for the run. But it was the same thing, 2 minutes in he said he couldn't run any more. I told him too bad and grabbed him by the arm and basically dragged him for the next 3 minutes making him run that entire 1/2 miles. Jared didn't like this at all. He was crying the whole way. But you know what he was able to do the run just fine. I asked him later and he agreed that it was the worst experience of this life. Keep this story in mind as I tell you how the half marathon went this weekend.

My one disclaimer I would like to mention is that in telling my half marathon story, that I am in no way making any excuses for my time or how I performed, these are simply the facts of the race. This half marathon was merely a training tool for my full marathon in October in Minneapolis. Two weeks ago I was also working on my training for these runs and ran 17 miles. At about 14 miles in to that run, I could feel my left knee get a little sore, it sort of felt like I had hyperextended it, but I didn't. I didn't think too much about it and kept running on it and finished my 17 miles. Like I said I was a little sore, but not too bad. In the time since that run and leading up to the half marathon, I took it somewhat easy on my training with my longest run being 3 miles. I also had a little soreness in my left knee after that run. Again nothing too bad that I couldn't run through. So let's fast forward to Saturday and the half marathon.

My goal for the race was 1 hour 45 minutes (that is about 8 minute miles). Realistically I was thinking it would be closer to 1 hour 50 minutes, but I knew I could break 2 hours. The race starts and I knew I didn't want to start out too fast. I started in the front 1/3 of the 700 plus racers. I got into a good pace, and following some advice I got from my buddy Kaker. I found a good looking girl keeping a good pace and ran behind her so I had something to look at plus I was clipping along at the pace I wanted. When I reached the 1st mile marker the time was 8:38. I thought to myself, "See you later sister, I got some work to do." and I went flying by that girl. The next mile I ran in 7:40. At this point I started to get some mild soreness on the outside of my left knee. Still I kept the pace up. I completed mile 3 in 7:56. My knee was feeling a little worse but still I was OK and holding decent form. Mile 4 was finished in 7:57. It was at this point I had scheduled myself to walk for a minute, eat some Gu and grab some water. I started walking and within 30 seconds I could feel my left knee tighten up and it felt like it was going to lock up in the straight position. I told myself if I don't start running now, I would be able to after a minute. So started running again. The pain went from about a 2 on a 1-10 scale before I started walking to a 5 after the walk. But I muscled through and finished mile 5 in 8:35. Mile 6 was 8:20. Mile 7 was 8:45. This is where the pain increased to about an 8. My body couldn't handle the pain and I had to slow down my pace. At this point I was 58 minutes into the race with 6 miles to go. The pain was killing me and I wanted to walk so bad, but two things were running through my mind. 1. If I started walking I wouldn't be able to run again. 2. I made Jared run, if I didn't run, I would by a hypocrite. With my pace slowed the rest of the race went as follows: Mile 8 was 9:54, Mile 9 was 9:57, Mile 10 was 10:03, Mile 11 was 10:42, Mile 12 was 10:24, and Mile 13 I felt a bit of adrenaline and crossed in 9:16.
It was a very disappointing race for me. Up until around mile 6 I don't think 5 people passed me, and I passed easily 100 other runners, maybe more. Once I had to slow my pace to 10:00 miles, everyone and their brother was passing me. I would just stare at their knees as they ran past, wishing I could switch knees with them. And once I slowed my pace, I wasn't even breathing hard. Yes it was a disappointing race, I really do think without knee problems I would have finished in 1:45, but as it was I crossed the finish line in 1 hour 58 minutes.
I would finally like to send out a special thanks to Julie, Nick and Ethan. They are the only ones who came to cheer me on and watch me cross the finish line. When you put in the hard work and training, it is nice to have someone there to appreciate it when you cross the finish line. Just the presence of being there and the little bit of cheering can make a big difference for a runner and help you to dig down and get a little more out of your body. So again thank you for showing up.