Hello and good morning! Quick update on my running progress.
With my ultra marathon career taking a break until my next race in October, I am free to work on speed instead of raw endurance. While training for long distance races yields its own rewards (5 hour runs every weekend) I do prefer keeping my runs shorter and faster.
My main training focus until mid June will be on regaining my sub 20 minute 5k fitness. Maybe even a foray into the sub 19 minute club. To do this I need to strengthen my legs and crank my cardio fitness into overdrive. Focusing mainly on speed workouts combined with “slow” long distance days is the name of the game.
The Workouts
Last week I polished off 30 miles. Two early morning 10 mile “long” runs with a goal pace of 9:20 that I accidentally beat with a sub 9 pace (oops) along with a series of 5 800 repeats as a speed workout. The remaining 5 miles took the form of another tempo run, focused on maintaining a sub 8:30 pace and burning off the massive piece of baby shower cake I ate on Saturday.
Public Service announcements
In other news, I finally broke down and downloaded Strava! Great tool to really compare yourself to others and feel an impending sense of dread at your lacking cardio fitness! Add me!
Let me know what you guys think about the new song, the progress and add me on Strava! another big week in progress so far, with hopefully some wargaming updates coming soon!
I found these guys in a New Mexico outdoor store and I fell in love with their killer hats immediately. I bought 3 on the spot and have snagged a couple more in the year since. Recently they started their button down shirt line, and their shirts may be better than their hats.
We all know this brand and we all love it. Can’t go wrong with this Vermont based outdoor brand. Quality clothes for fair prices, I’ve typically relied on this brand to get me through the winter, I now look at their shirts and light jackets to keep me comfortable this spring
Athleisure brands aren’t normally my style but I cannot deny the quality that this brand is putting out. My go to sweats and shorts for errand running and a lazy day on the couch
I own more boots than I care to admit, but my two pairs of Thursday boots have been a staple of my closet for 5 years now. I prefer my Service Boots with no toe caps but they offer selections of both styles
Let me know what you guys think. Am I missing any essentials? Anything I’m dead wrong on?
I know, I know, Opening Day has come and gone. Opening day for me is just this week though as I get ready to attend my first game of the year featuring the Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles. In honor of this, and the fact that some of my most loyal readers are looking to make some money off of my super dope baseball picks, I’ll post my first picks.
The Season so far
What can I say about Baseball that has not been said a hundred times before? A baseball game is the greatest way to spend a summer day and we all know it. Inspiring incredible movies like Baseketball, Bull Durham, The Rookie, and The Benchwarmers. All of which I have watched recently to get back into the Baseball mindset. Here are my thoughts so far, and then my picks for the next week or so.
The Highs
What a crazy start to this season! The Devil Rays of Tampa Bay have exploded to a 14-2 start, absolutely triumphant return to form for these guys.
My Milwaukee Brewers have also had an incredible season so far, winning their opening series against the Cubs and then maintaining a first place position in the division. Great start, lets hope we don’t fall off like years prior
The Nationals are terrible…Why is that a good thing? Its means that I can go to my local MLB games regularly as the tickets are cheap. Even though it will be bad baseball, $30 for 2 tickets is an easy Friday night that I cannot complain about.
The Lows
The Phillies have come off of their World Series appearance with a whimper, not a bang. I feel for the city of brotherly love, it has been a tough year for them. I hope to see them come back but I’m not holding my breath.
The Picks
03/17/23 Reds +1.5 over The Devil Rays
03/17/23 Mets Vs Dodgers Over 8.5 runs
03/18/23 Nationals +1.5 over Orioles
03/18/23 Twins Money Line
Season Long bets- AL winner- Blue Jays
Brewers to win NL Central
Brewers to win NL
Mets to win NL East
Angels to win AL west
Aaron Judge to as HR leader
Lets check back in a couple days to see how our picks do. Next up we will be looking at Hockey and Basketball Playoffs. Let me know what y’all think about the above picks and let me know how much money you win.
I’m a little over a month post race at this point which I cannot believe. Was truly the hardest physical challenge I’ve ever attempted. Though giving myself only 2.5 months to train was not the path to greatness I originally hoped I did get the job done, not with a good time but with a finishing time nonetheless.
Above-Thundering ahead, nearing the 28 mile mark
How did it go:
Frankly, the veteran Cross country runner in me is not happy with my time. I averaged a 13’22” mile for the race with a final time of 7:25:38. While I can blame the hilly course, the foul weather, the mud and the extra 2 miles added to what was already the longest race I’ve ever run by a 25 mile margin I have to blame myself first and foremost. I was undertrained and under prepared. That being said, I finished a race that many people will never even attempt, this brings me great pride.
The finishing proof
Lessons learned:
Hydration- My camelback, full of water was far too heavy for a long distance race like this. Especially on a 40 degree winter day. In the future I’ll underfill the bag or find a smaller water bottle that can be filled up at aid stations
Training- 2.5 months is not enough to go from couch to trail 50k. Not with a good time, and not on hilly terrain like this at least. I needed more mileage, and more hills in my training program
Clothing- I actually nailed this part. Had a variety of layers that I was able to switch between as the temperature changed throughout the day.
Keep your mind sharp- after 7 hours of running I really lost the mental game, with just a couple miles left I felt my will falter. Only way I was able to get it back was by keeping a positive attitude, and cracking jokes. At the final aid station, after over half of the 100 finishers, I asked the volunteers “you guys know how far in front I am” to a couple motivating laughs. Pic related
The Future:
My ultra career is just beginning, of that I am sure. The first thing I said as I sat in the car, writhing in pain to my Girlfriend was “I’m doing this again”. Now whether that was due to my masochistic desire to destroy my body or due to the fact that I know that I was capable of more I cannot say. What I can say is that I’ve signed up for a 50 mile race on October 14th in Chicago, a race that promises to be flat, and with ample training time, I am confident that I will finish with a strong time.
That brings me to how that applies to this blog. With a 50 miler comes hundreds of miles of training, over scores of hours split between dozens of workouts. This will not be a fun journey, but it will be an interesting one, for me at least. Stay tuned to learn, grow and sweat with me.
As march fades into April, and April into summer I look back at this year’s building, painting, and gaming. Catching the blog up for what promises to be an exciting year for my tabletop wargaming career.
This Year So far
Let’s start with a recap of this year’s progress:
Last year Gamesworkshop (GW) made the decision to remake their whole Imperial Guard product line… a line that some of you may know is what got me into the war gaming scene. This, combined with my discovery of the old Imperial Armour campaign books, proved disastrous for my saving account as I quickly became inspired to build, and paint an airborne desert recon force. This force’s main objective being to participate in a campaign against my longtime hobby-homie Mike (you’ll hear about and from him a lot I reckon). This army was quickly assembled and promptly wiped off the table at every game they fought in. No matter, guardsmen are meant to die.
As the new edition of Warhammer 40k looms in the not distant future, expect to see these guys often as I bolster their ranks in the coming months.
The Tallarn so far
The second, and more important project was the completion of my Ultramarines Horus Heresy (aka Warhammer 30k, or 30k for short). A labor of love over the past 2 years I managed to finally compile the 3000 points necessary to participate in all of the Adepticon events I was interested in.
My Completed Adepticon Ultramarines
I’ve got a feeling there will be a large addition to those ultramarines coming in the next couple weeks…
Adepticon: The big show
For those of you that don’t know, Adepticon is the largest wargaming convention in the world. Widely regarded as a holy pilgrimage for the biggest nerds in the country. This was my second time making the trek to Chicago for this massive event, and while I lost my usual gaming partner due to work commitments, I was determined to make the best of it.
Day 1
The opening night of the con is always exciting, Games workshop again bringing an exciting preview of the months to come. Whereas last year we got to see the trailer for the new edition of Horus Heresy, this year’s headliner was 10th edition 40k. The crowd was absolutely electric this time around, and as an added bonus I ran into a group of guys from Philly that I ended up spending most of the con hanging with.
The first vendor as always, always a good place to score rare models
Day 2
Day 2 was my big game day, with 2 Horus Heresy games and a massive game with dozens of titans on the table-only problem was I had no titan of my own… In steps my main man Mike. His first, but not last, legendary act of weekend being his purchase of the below Reaver titan.
Absolute beauty, the first of the two Reavers that would be headed home with me this weekend.
Day 2’s games proved to be as fun as previous cons, the event organizers doing a bang up job with the event.
Game one, my massive Falchion tank chewed through his armor with the highlight play of the day. That’s a lot of titans!
Day 3
While days 1 and 2 were fun, day 3 proved to be the high water mark of the convention.
Restarting his own wargaming Journey, one of my oldest and best friends Sam came by to see what Adepticon was all about. After taking a couple laps around the convention floor, we settled down and had our first 40k game in nearly 10 years.
I can confidently say that Sam used his decade to prepare for our rematch a lot better than I did. The game was a total slaughter, wiping my Imperial Guard right off the table.
The setup.This brave Guardsman held the line for 3 turns against Sam’s Chaos scum
With almost perfect timing as our game ended. In flew my main man Mike. Escaping from the prison of his old job, he made his way straight to Chicago. Once our twosome was upgraded to a threesome, the night only went uphill from there. With the drinks and stories flowing, we tied one off. I even managed to muster the courage to challenge Sam to a rematch -which I promptly lost. Better luck next time!
Look at these Studs
I know this was a total ramble but I just wanted to get everything down before I forget it
PS- Mike’s Reaver Titan will NOT be the only Reaver we see on this blog this year
Hello to all that visit, I’ve found that the older I get the more hobbies I seem to acquire. While some might call me a Renaissance Man, I think I would prefer to be called the El Camino of people. Not too good at any of the hobbies I pursue, I try to improve a little every day. Not sure how often I’ll be posting, my goal is at least once a week for each of the main topics so if you see me lacking, hoot and holler at me to keep me honest.
In the beginning I intend to focus on a couple main topics, Fitness, Tabletop Wargaming, Sports and Cooking. These are not the only topics I intend to cover but they are the meat and potatoes that consist the meal of my life. If none of those topics interest you, don’t fret as I intend to cover many other things including but not limited to Cars, Trucks, Lego, Movies, Music, Camping and Fashion.
Happy to have you here and hopefully I can keep you entertained for a couple minutes each week. Adios for now, I have some posts to write.
Urban Cowboy Hobbies 
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