That is my non-ambitious goal for the race I entered in this past Sunday. I am planning on running a half-marathon in Anaheim in September. You have to finish the race in 3.5 hours and if you don’t keep that pace a truck comes and drives you to the end! That is motivation enough to finish faster than that pace. I decided 3 hours is a good round number. That is over a 13 minute pace, which seems slow, however after 5 miles I am not too sure if that will feel slow.

Being a financial analyst I created a Excel spreadsheet which shows the progress I need to make per week. In addition, it shows the treadmill level I will use in my training. I think I am going to try to maintain a 13 minute pace throughout my training and just increase my distance run. Yesterday I ran 3 miles in 36.5 minutes. Not very good, but not bad for my 3rd day of training.

I joined 24 hour fitness in July of 2005, I believe. I have been working out i.e. swimming, spin, resistance training, row, & eliptical mainly, on a regular basis. However, when I do cardio besides the cycle class and swimming I usually just do 15 minutes. That is not nearly enough to help me get ready for a half-marathon. So I know I need to train hard. I will also turn 30, 2 days after the race, so I better do it now. I am excited to have a goal to work toward.

On Sat. D and I had a “date night” that consisted of dinner at Volcano Burger, jazz concert at my old high school and Starbucks. D had never been to Volcano Burger, so since it is right across from LAHS, I thought it would be a good time for him to try it. For those of you who don’t know, Volcano Burger:LAHS::Peach Pit:BH 90210. Heh.

After freezing outside in line, we watched the middle school band, LAHS Jazz I and The Gordon Goodwin Big Phat Band. I was impressed with the middle school…watch out for them in a few years. They played charts from the same composers that we used to use…Bill Liston, Tom Kubis, etc. Ah, the memories. It was good to see Mr. Wackerman teaching for his 49th year–amazing! The GGBPB was enjoyable. They all seemed to really love what they were doing. They played a nice range of music, and even poked fun at their all-white-male-ness by playing their own arrangement of “Play That Funky Music White Boy”.

The concert ended at around 7:30 and the night was still young so we went to the Cypress Starbucks and shared a grande Marble Mocha Macchiato. We saw all these Asian kids studying and it made me glad to be past that stage of my life.

Usually when people ask me what teams I follow, I respond with Cal Football & IU basketball. This is mainly due to the fact that historically IU basketball is really good (3rd most chmpionships beside UCLA & Kentucky, and 20 Big Ten champioships) and their football team is bad (all time win record is under .500). Cal on the other hand is pretty even with their football and basketball. Both in the top 5 in the Pac-10 historically but not great in either. However, I like college football better than college basketball.

However, I got interested in watching Cal basketball especially during the Pac-10 tournament. I was pleasantly surprised how well Cal did. The semi-final game against Oregon was crazy. It ended just before midnight, which is 3 hours past my bedtime. I was kicked out the the bedroom and watched it in the freezing family room. (L won’t allow us to turn on the heater. Further, I don’t know how.) Leon Powe did a great job. I hope they can win a game in the NCAA tournament.

As for IU basketball. They beat Wisconsin and then lost to Ohio State in the Big Ten tournament. Not too bad. The Hoosiers record were not as good as Cal, but the Big Ten is better than the Pac-10.

Just found out…
No. 7 California (20-10, 12-6 Pac-10) vs. No. 10 NC State (21-9, 10-6 Atlantic Coast Conference)
No. 6 Indiana (18-11, 9-7 Big Ten) vs. No. 11 San Diego State (24-8, 13-3 Mountain West Conference)

I think IU has an easier time getting to the 2nd round.

I always seem to be behind in my updates. Just wanted to comment that I was glad that Crash won Best Picture last Sunday. It was one of the few movies that I had actually seen. My goal is to watch every movie that has won Best Picture. The only others that were nominated that I had seen were: Chronicles of Narnia, Star Wars III, March of the Penguins (I liked the guy speaking penguin) and Murderball. D and I will be watching Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room tonight. I seem to be liking documentaries recently.

This past Sat. D and I ventured down to Dana Point for their annual whale festival. The night before I accidentally cut my toe open, so I wasn’t sure if I was up for walking around, but I managed.

First, we walked around the docks, where artists were selling their paintings/photographs.

Then we ate lunch at RJ’s Cafe (50% Entertainment Book discount). I had “The Gobbler”, turkey (they roast their own) sandwich with cranberry sauce. I originally fell in love with this combo at Togo’s. It came with a side salad that I had ordered with blue cheese dressing (house-made) on the side. That was the best blue cheese dressing ever–creamy, and not too pungent. D ordered “The Hole in the Fence” omelette, with mushrooms and sausage. It was quite large, and he could not finish it.

Then we waited for the shuttle to the actual whale festival, as suggested to us by the Dana Point Visitor’s Center. (We felt very Rachael Ray-ish stopping by there). However, after a lot of waiting, no sign of a shuttle, and people who had just returned from the festival on foot claiming that the shuttle was imaginary, we decided to hoof it up Golden Lantern to PCH. Of course, just as we got there, we saw the shuttle arriving. Hmph. I wasn’t too impressed with the festival…it seemed kind of junky to me. Not to be snobby, but this is Dana Point, where we saw three Porsches, a Ferrari, and a Rolls Royce just in the short time we were in the parking lot, as well as waay too many overly-pampered dogs. I expected it to be classier, I guess.

On our way back down the hill, we joked that these condos are probably considered the “slums of Dana Point” since they are right across the street from some mansions. Of course, they are actually really nice, and look at their view!:

Who’s that guy that you hear yelling whenever an American is about to start a downhill ski event in the Olympics? I guess his job is to pump the skiiers up, but D and I always start cracking up. He has a really gruff voice and yells things like “Kill it!” or “Come on [fill in the skiier’s last name]…hammer it!” He does a good job of mixing it up. Maybe he has a notebook to keep track of new phrases to use. I want to see what he looks like, but they never show him.