Candidate for worst error ever.
STEPS - on Vista:
RESULT:
Why can’t I get Help from this program?
The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which was used in previous versions of Windows and it is not supported in Windows Vista.
EXPECT:
The operating system to not be moderately less utterly stupid about its own documentation.
As usually happens when I start talking about running, my recap of last Sunday’s Seattle half-marathon got a little long-winded. Here’s the short version.
I think that’s the long and short of it.
This is all kinds of awesome - it’s just missing Dave Kendall and I could convince myself I’m back in high school. Or the Night Flight lady and it would be junior high.
It was a beautiful day Sunday for the Seattle marathon run, half-marathon run, and half-marathon walk. I remember when I was in Portland I felt kind of weird about the theatrics of Big Race Registration. It couldn’t have been different on Saturday. I went to the Westin where race check-in was happening and where we had a meeting at 1:00 for the pacers and the vibe was probably almost exactly the same as in Portland but it all just felt terrific. It’s full of people reaching the peak of what, for most of them, has been months and months of training for what, for many of them, will be the greatest and only real endurance challenge like this that they’ll ever go through. Dick Beardsley was signing autographs at the top of the escalator, the expo was rolling along, the weather was terrific and so was the forecast for Sunday, and the mood was completely invigorating.
I participated in the half-marathon run as a pacer on the first leg of the 6:52 minute mile group for people aiming to finish in 1:30. I’ve never paced before and haven’t run a half-marathon that fast so I felt really nervous about it. On the other hand, finishing a half-marathon in 1:30 isn’t really easy and almost nobody who’s aiming for that goal should really need the pacer and I was only responsible for running half of the half-marathon at that pace which should have been no problem.
The race was tremendously fun. The weather held up, as promised, and the way they mix the events with walkers, half-marathoners, and marathoners made for a really good half-marathon. The marathon walkers started at 7:15AM and the half-marathon run started at 7:30AM. I was the sole 6:52 pacer for the first leg so I started near the front with my group and I told them I couldn’t promise we’d run every mile at our exact pace but I’d keep us close and we’d hit the goal.
We rolled into the first mile at about 7 minutes. I was happy with this because I’ve never finished a race and thought “boy, I started that too slowly” and from what I could tell no one minded. We picked up the pace slightly as we headed downhill toward the international district and to the I-90 on-ramps. As we got on I-90, we were catching up with the walkers and they routed the walkers to one side of a divider on the ramp and the runners on another.
Aside: this coordination and separation is why I say they manage for a pretty good half-marathon in Seattle. With the 15 minute head start, the half-marathon runners will mostly hit their walking group at this point and there really isn’t much potential for a messy collision since neither group (walkers or runners) has spread out that much after the first couple miles and the routes are really pretty well separated when we meet each other. Meanwhile the marathon runners start an hour after the marathon walking course and follow the same route and start half an hour after the half-marathon walkers. This has way more potential for the groups to spread out and the marathon runners are basically guaranteed to be hitting walkers on their course and probably be dodging walkers the whole second half of the way.
So we climbed up the I-90 on-ramp. I expected this to be a harder climb than it really was - it’s long but it’s not steep at all. Still, I tried to dial back the pace a little since the beginning isn’t where I wanted to drop people from the pace group and we marched away from the Sound. Entering the I-90 tunnel felt really, really incredible. I had Max, a 15-year old cross-country first time half-marathoner, from Oregon in lockstep with me and he was really enjoying the day. I let out a “woop!” as we got entered the tunnel and tried to let our group know we were all doing great as we hit the 4 mile mark almost exactly on track for our goal. I didn’t exactly catch every mile marker and I know we took some miles faster and some slower but I think we were within 10 seconds of our target pace for my entire leg and hit the transition point to my co-pacer, G-Money, who would take the group to the finish within about 5 seconds of where I think we wanted to be.
The half-marathon course skips the I-90 bridge and we rounded down to Lake Washington Boulevard and headed toward Madison Park. The second leg was where things started getting more difficult. Through downtown, up 90, and along Lake Washington the course is all really very enjoyable and relatively flat. Around the midpoint I took a gu and for the first time used a nice Ultimate Direction gel flask. I was afraid of trying to throw this into the mix in Portland so I didn’t use it there but I’m a now a solid convert and will definitely have this as part of any significant distance race I run in the future. Anyway, the next part of the race got a lot harder. In training I always went back to Madison Park and never even saw the short steep climb on Galer, which was not easy at all. I’d also only run the climb on Madison back to Madison Valley once, which was also harder than I remember. I dropped back behind G-Money at these climbs and contemplated not finishing. I didn’t need to finish. If I did finish, I’d be setting a PR and with just a month and a half since my marathon I didn’t really need to go out and prove anything. And I’d fallen in Minnesota three days earlier and didn’t really think I needed to push my knee that much.
But that’s not how I roll.
So we continued the route over to Interlaken and got to the long climb on the course. I started making up ground on G-Money and brought a couple other 1:30 target finishers with me (which felt great since that’s what I was there for!) and by the time we hit the ChuckIt water station just after mile 10 we were together again.
By the time we cleared Interlaken I knew I was going to finish and knew I’d make 1:30, and hit a personal record (PR) in the process. Max had taken off by this time but G-Money and I stayed together with a few other runners and cruised around Lakeview, across I-5, and down the descent on Harrison to the climb over to Mercer. As we rounded the last turns entering Mercer Arena for the finish the last few of us let loose with our finishing kicks and I was happy to see I had something left to give and squeaked ahead of a few runners (and fell behind a few) and coasted in with a final chip time of 1:28:39. I’m surprised now to write that since I thought according to my watch and their clocks that my time was 1:29:39, but who am I to fight with technology?
G-Money and I congratulated each other and posed for the photographer. I found Max and gave him back his hat (at about mile 7 he took of his stocking cap and asked if I’d carry it for him - apparently in Oregon “pacer” means “porter”…), got my thermal blanket and relaxed. I went around to the finishing chute and looked for other runners. I only saw Snowbell, who’s apparently a ChuckIt old-timer but has been off and on this summer due to injuries. I cheered for her to finish and we chatted afterward. This was her first significant race in a while and her target was 1:45 but she said she was just overjoyed to see the clock at her finish and see she was coming in just over 1:41.
I’ve said this before but Snowbell’s story reflects the greatest aspect of racing. Every race anyone finishes is a terrific accomplishment. Everyone sets their own goals and at different points in their lives or training they can always find something about every finish that makes them happy. Sometimes it’s easier than others to find things to be happy about (having finished races this year where I’ve had a rectal thermometer administered, crapped by the side of the road, and violently thrown up all over the street, I know this as well as anyone!) but at the end of the race it’s almost impossible to feel anything but proud of your achievement. I’m super happy to have had the chance to run with so many talented people on Sunday and proud that we all helped each other get to the finish.
Running in the suburbs and on the track is relatively dull…
…I forgot the suburbs mean long, rolling hill runs…hello, nice yellow dog - I won’t cross your fence…I forgot wide open places mean cold, cold wind…elementary school dirt track or high school? elementary school is closer…first mile right on pace each lap - terrific!…way more wind than I thought - in this weather I don’t just warm up - maybe try the high school track…”Hey, do you guys know if I any of these gates are unlocked?” - “No, I think it’s locked all the way around” - rats, back to the elementary school - there’s a wasted mile…one more minute break before the next paced mile…hmm, hamstring doesn’t feel right at all - is it the cold? do I keep going?…head home - just do that at pace, it’s still a mile and a half and I’ll get in a decent distance - no sense risking freezing or injury now…no dog - that’s probably good, it’s too cold out anyway…”Woof!” from behind me - “oh, you’re still there - it was nice seeing you again!”…gotta wear gloves and pants next time - when will I stop underdressing for winter running?…
Since yesterday I’ve been getting harassed by Mr. Bun, my wifi bunny. There’s a facebook application that you can put on your profile page allowing visitors to type in a message and rather than be notified over email, it will go directly to your rabbit and your rabbit will then read it to you. Since yesterday I’ve woken up to my bunny loudly announcing “Patrick enjoys little boys” which was *almost* funny the first time (thanks, Nico).
But anyway, being able to create applications like this that enable newer, richer ways to interact are more on why I think facebook is obviously way better situated than sites like myspace (where “rich interaction” is defined by not getting back a HTTP 500 error) or friendster. But it would be nice to get a little more respect from Mr. Bun.
(8:42:43 AM) Nick Curran: what kind of man does not have a plunger?
To clarify, the clog that spawned this conversation is in my sink and I think it’s from orange peels.
On the one hand, RE-Load make some really, really cool messenger bags. On the other, I’d have to be on crack and possibly living in the 18th century to consider paying $300 for a messenger bag that I can’t get for two months. Adjusted for inflation, of course, to 18th century dollars where $300 comes out to “way too much.”
If I lived in London, I’d make it a point to get to the V&A to see the show of these photographs.
I’m on this daily trivia email list that from an old coworker. This week there have been two astonishing bits of trivia:
I was way off on the first one because it’s really asking “what animal has been responsible for the most human death” and guessed right on the second only because why would there even be a question like that if the answer isn’t “yes”? To get to the bottom of this - quiteinteresting.com states:
Do marmots kill people?
Yes, they cough them to death.
[…]
The estimated death toll is more than a billion, making the marmot second only to the malarial mosquito as a killer of humans.
And that’s why I’m never going camping again.
