Years later I made a boneheaded data mistake for a client and changed their historical orders going back years. Shouldn’t have happened but it did. First thing I did was call them, own the issue, work up a fix and then cranked away for a day and a 1/2 to rectify it. Does this make me special? I would think “hell no” I was just being professional. But this year I’ve had interactions with folks that don’t take accountability, don’t own their mistakes, and I’m witnessing the cost that has to quality, trust, and schedules.

The specifics of the last particular issue aren’t important. The short of it was a member of my tech team made an erratic choice during testing that destroyed the integrity of the results. I happened to witness the mistake and then witnessed that they never detailed it to the team members and tried to let it slide under the rug. Just like when we were kids, if we come clean right away its better for everyone and the fact that this person didn’t is now the issue to me.

Although it may seem like a minor incident it isn’t; the way we behave in areas deemed minor or inconsequential generally align with how we would respond and behave in major ones. How we treat people. If we follow through with what we say. If we live and work with integrity and honesty. These are traits of professionals, of fully formed adults. Of what the old-timers would call “stand-up” people.

Last weekend I ran the Green Bay 1/2 marathon with some friends and it turns out the course was long by 800 yards. Now 800 yards is not far, especially when compared with 13.1 or 26.2 miles. But for the folks who depend on accuracy of the course and are shooting for time goals that 800 yards can equate to a minute or more of race time. Below is what the race director sent out regarding the issue. He detailed the issue, owned it, told us how it would be rectified and even though a mistake was made on his watch I have greater respect and trust in a race director I’ve already heard wonderful things about. Way to be professional Sean Ryan!

The goals have changed since I signed up in the spring but so it goes. I will not be chasing my first sub 3:00 hour marathon as I expected. My spring goals missed the mark and had the slide effect on all goals. Well that and my torrid spring/summer/fall romance with plantar fasciitis. I wish I could quit you plantar? But we deal with what we have so the goals have reverted back to going for my first Boston Qualifying time of 3:10 and to follow the lead of my partner in running shoes I’m documenting my misses. (Shawn’s is here)

2007 Fargo Marathon – 3:50:13 – This was my second marathon and technically I was trying to pace my friend Mike to his BQ of 3:15 so this wouldn’t have counted but in my mind I thought I could run a 3:10 and it was such a tragic run I’m throwing it in. Ran a great first 1/2 with Mike and Ron, then around 14 my abdomen hurt, followed by cramping in my groin, then both of them, then glutes, etc. I limped through the second 1/2 and made it through. Later learned I had two inguinal hernias…nice.

2008 Phoenix Marathon – DNF – Ah, my DNF marathon! You never forget your first! And please be the last. In hindsight, what was I thinking? I raced for a PR marathon 6 months after surgery for two hernias? The adductor pain was intense that winter and few Minnesota ice slip-n-falls on the trails didn’t help much. I ended up keeping pace through mile 16 and then shut her down at mile 21 when I couldn’t walk without pain. The positive though was that this was the second marathon in a row my training partner reached their BQ.

2010 Fargo Marathon – 3:46:13 – Shawn and I had an excellent training session for this race and hit all the marks in preceding races that left me highly confident going in, the result proves the axiom of “it depends on the day”. We did not get a good day. Thunderstorms, humidity, rain, high temps after a training session in the Minny winters. I held up through 20 and was DOA at that point. I thought I was done at mile 10 actually so a small victory.

Even with the qualifying requirement, the Boston Marathon fills fast. A registration window that in years past could be open for 6 months is now expected to close in days. With such a short window those who qualify in the upcoming NYC Marathon will likely be unable to register for Boston 2011. The article brings up the subject of addressing this issue. If a race requires one to qualify, is deemed prestigious, and yet so many people are able to qualify that it fills out registration in days then does the qualifying process need a review?

A man of my age (less than 35) must run a 3:10 marathon which is roughly a 7:15 minute mile for 26.2 miles. A woman of the same age group needs a 3:40 to qualify which comes out to a 8:20 minute mile. That 30 minute difference between the genders is continued through all age groups and is the focus of the authors. They raise an interesting point in that when the 30 minute gap was implemented in 1977 the “mentality was ‘frailty, the name is woman’” and is 30 minutes to much time given for women. Citing the statistics of elite runners shows an average gap of more near 20 minutes than 30 minutes and looking into the marathon population as a whole shows a difference that is less than 30 but not to far off; but that also included the second wave runners who run at much slower times and are predominately women.

I think this is a fair question to present and perhaps the research we need is what is the average gap between the Boston qualifying running population. This would reduce the population studied by removing those that are not Boston material presently to see what that delta is. Perhaps 20 or 25 minutes instead of 30 is the way to go. Another issue is that perhaps the male times should be dropped as well. If marathoning is so popular that so many people can join this exclusive club then make the club more exclusive. Make me run a 3:05 or a 3:00 to qualify. All qualifications are fair game.

Dropping of the men’s qualifying time would not benefit me of course and note that I have yet to qualify for Boston. That was supposed to have occurred in May but the Fargo weather decided to bring a sudden wave of storms full of humidity and warmth to me and the fellow runners who had trained in the comforts of a dry winter and cool spring. Overheat anyone? Now the Philadelphia marathon is my next attempt and 6 weeks away. And when I get my time I will know that Boston is already full for 2011 which means I will have to defer to 2012; talk about planning out your races!

But I’ll be there and yes, I’ll probably buy the jacket, the shirt, and a hat…c’mon, it is the BOSTON MARATHON.

See below…

Well, apparently Lumberjack Days also exists during the day! Who knew?! And part of the festivities are a 5K and a 10 miler. Even though many of my run buddies were doing these races I did not plan on it. With the Pikes Peak ascent coming up I have been working under the pretense that I can not run the trails at Hyland enough and planned to do a double loop there on Saturday. However the body has shown me a different path yet again as all those uneven trails, ruts, and foot shuffles have brought a nasty left quad issue which tugged and wrenched on my knee to such a degree that I had to take off three days from running.  So off the advice of some folks I am taking a hill break and to make a long story shorter but yet not short I signed up for the 5K.

My goal was to see where I was at right now. I’ve been building up the base miles over the past few weeks after a light June and have yet to reach the weekly mileage I am looking to settle in at. With the last race being the Fargo marathon I wasn’t expecting a rockstar performance but then again there had been some solid track workouts that were focused on the shorter stuff and getting the fast-twitch fibers back in the game. The expectation was that I’d have the turnover and speed but maybe lack the fitness for a solid race.

With Kelly was out of town I had to take care of the pooch and ended up behind schedule and not picking up my packet until the last of the buses were loading to bring runners to the start of the point-to-point course. The packet pickup was chaos and one of the worst I’ve ever seen. The directions were to pick up your packet by bib number but the signs alerting folks to which line they should enter were hidden by the lines. The pickup took a solid 15 minutes and it looked like a solid warmup wouldn’t be happening that day. Then I saw Rob and we met after the packet pickup and we ran to the start for our warmup (good thinking Rob). Race start was coming so I put in a few drills and maybe two strides and went to the start. My legs were not feeling loose or good and the while it wasn’t hot it was humid enough to have me already soaked and slightly uncomfortable.

Rob and I wished Brian good luck and settled back further in the pack and found Shawn and Nicole. Race plan was this. Rob was going to pace me to a sub 19 and I was hoping Shawn would be there with us; first mile at a 6:10 and then hammer. This was damn exciting. When I broke 20 minutes in the 5k for the first time Brian paced me and now Rob was pacing me; another reason I love running with these people.

Gun. Start. Away we go, the first mile is a descending one and the pace is quickening. I tend to run too fast on that first mile, suffer the second, and fight back on the third; I would guess this is common. First mile shows a 5:58 on my watch. So the good news is we’ve gained 12 seconds on the race plan, thrown that in the bank and we are feeling okay. The bad news is that I know I’ve just thrown 12 seconds in the bank and nothing is free! The legs are suffering already and Rob has activated his jet-pack and is taking off. My thought here is to keep Rob in sight, focus on form, fight, and hope Shawn is right there with me.

But it got worse. Ouch. I was struggling and mile two was as 6:17, a full 19 seconds slower. Granted it ascended a bit but still I was dejected and figured a sub 19 was out. I also considered pulling up there and coasting in as I was spent but I trudged along and then looked down at my watch, less than a mile to go so I started focusing. 0.6 miles, 0.5 miles, you get it and I started thinking about track workouts and running an 800 is all I have to do and picked up the pace. Third mile in 6:05! I have a chance but then the last tenth was across a grass common area that was damp and slower than the road and I slowed until seeing the club, hearing encouragement and trying to push it that last tenth (5:10 pace) a hundred yards out or so I saw I was actually near 19, shocked I pushed again and the clock read 19:01 as I crossed. I was a little disheartened but loved the fight I showed when I wanted to quit. I glanced at my watch and 18:57! Boom! New PR baby.

http://www.lumberjackdays.com/roadraces.asp

I’m entertaining a period of greater self-reflection that feels a little indulgent since I’m generally fairly self-aware but hey, I’m going deeper. As a part of the exercise I wanted to reflect on some of goals I have put forth in the past while. Now I’m not the best list taker so these are as my tonights recollection. And I’m going to remove the general goals of continual self-improvement like: get more sleep, be a better listener..blah blah blah.

• Start my MBA – so I’ve been bored and when I’m bored I like to kick start things by signing up for more expensive years of school! This goal has been shelved for sometime in the next 5  years. While I know I’d enjoy the experience I really need to focus on the why’s because just last year I enrolled in a Ph.D program in Computer Science before collecting myself. Besides, I’ve already self-funded one graduate program and afterwards I did not give myself a raise! There will come a time when this is more aligned to the present and that just isn’t now.
• Start my startup – pulling on the bootstraps and going to town on the idea that has been baking in my head for quite a while. I’ve discussed it with folks, sought feedback from would be consumers of the niche endeavor and feel confident but I got caught up in billing time  that by the end of the day I did not want to code. This should see traction soon.
• Production Rails work – I’ve read about Rails, Rails 2, a now there is Rails 3 and while I’ve made the local blog engine and used Ruby for some administrative server work I’m missing a production rollout until…drumroll…I finally do it through some running club focused development I’m throwing on Shawn’s design with our run club. So this goal will have been met in a few weeks.
• Improve Networking and Mentoring – The world is a small place and I’ve been working to stay in touch with those I’ve had the opportunity to work with and trying to get to know those I haven’t yet. One of the benefits I’m looking for is to feel involved in the local developer communities and it has been working and I’ll keep on it. Another aspect is mentoring which has been a nice aside from the day-to-day and I do look forward to teaching at some point.
• Contribute to Open Source (kinda) – so I broke the rules a bit on this one and decided to volunteer my time on something I really enjoyed which is runningahead.com and is not open source but it is free so I figure good enough. Now this goal has been met in theory only as I haven’t given Eric the attention I planned on but he’s being patient so this goal will get checked off.
• Improve my running – this has been going well, my effort and dedication to running has grown as has my appreciation of good health as I’ve had plantar fasciitis for 6 months was close to tying the famed shin splints of 06 as the most painful and is only a year away from matching my record of longest injury with my double hernia of 07. Once the plantar heels up I feel like I’ll drop it to another level. I was keyed in for an easy Boston Qualifier at Fargo this year and drew a bad weather day for this clydesdale and overheated.
• Read more consistently – I read all the time and waste little of my day but I have a plethora of magazines and the daily paper along with my technical (print and web) content that my ‘fun’ reading collection has been largely ignored. I really did enjoy reading The Road on the Kindle this year and I read the Dan Brown book candy finally giving up my boycott to see what the fuss was about. Turned out like I thought, easy reading the doesn’t bring much in the end and yet draws you to it…much like when I watched Rambo as a child (and perhaps still).
• Write you fool write – so there is the writing of this variety which I have not taken too very well. I’m been adament about the separation of Jake and computer but lately am having a different take and plan to write more. I’m not sure what about, my first approach was to treat this as business only but really who are we kidding with the separation of concerns these days. Google will find all sides of us and present it with a nice little bow to whoever looks. If I treat this as business only it is not like the 4500 races I’ve ran won’t come up 2nd, 3rd, 4th in the google results. And trust me, I just can’t be that guy who posts code about the latest IoC framework written entirely in Scala for JSON or business advice detailing my knowledge on the devaluation of Apple because of AntennaGate (I’m keeping my iPhone4…you can’t pry it out of my kung fu grip). I will work on writing more but at the end of the day I prefer building things or dreaming of large nest eggs.

  BUT – My creative writing has been dormant and my poetry as been decimated. Once upon a time I would attend poetry slams and open mikes…now I wouldn’t perform but I’d think about the day I’d perform and if you are still here you should know that you are reading the blog of 2004 Sonoma library – Healdsburg branch – poetry champion! Those days were wonderful inspiration, being in a new place and drinking wine all the time generates a lot. So! I’m going to write some more and I may even put something on here from time to time to keep it fresh.

Patient Money – Losing Weight the Smartphone Way, With a Nutritionist in Your Pocket – NYTimes.com.

So I take spin, work hard and track it all and then go to clear the display on the watch when she freezes harder Keanu Reeves at a Shakespeare rehearsal. No problem I say. Go online, can’t find much other than the soft reset
which does bring it back up BUT ONLY for that use. Every single time I want to use it again I have to do a soft reset; a little annoying. I’m aware of the hard reset, I’ve done the hard reset, I must have an email from Garmin support about the hard reset, I should remember the hard reset…but obviously not. And searching the web for ‘reset’ on a running watch is a Google-stupefying experience. But since I’m a determined fellow I finally found it and now I bring it here to you (or more likely me in 2010 when the next crisis comes). Answers thanks to Garmin’s Wiki

Directions for Soft reset

Users may have various device troubles. If you’ve tried charging the device or upgrading the device software and you’re still experiencing problems, you may want to try a soft reset by pressing mode and lap at the same time.

Directions for hard reset

Users may have various device troubles. As a last resort we suggest utilizing the Hard Reset. A hard reset will reset the unit to all default settings and delete all history from the unit. This is accomplished by turning the unit on while holding the mode button. You will lose all your settings, but you can re-upload your profile by hooking up your device to Training Center for PC users and then tell it to download the history from your device. TC will then ask you which profile to use, if you answer TC, it will upload its profile into the device.