Race Pace

Tomorrow evening I'm running in the Dayton Celtic Festival 5K Run in Dayton, Ohio. Jennifer and I take the girls to the Celtic Festival every year we have a blast. We basically walk around the streets of Dayton with a "pint of Guiness" and listen to Celtic music. They have all kinds of activities for the kids too. Lizzie and Jazzy always get their faces painted and play all the carnie-style games.

Well basically, the event always has a 5K and I decided to sign up for it this year since I'm a runner now. The goal is to finish under 25 minutes; it will be a tough one. I truly believe that I can because I know what I can dish out when I want to. Plus, all of my injuries are healed now and I'm ready to give my legs and feet a real good (and fast) pounding.

Lately I've been running a lot slower, but I've also been running a lot longer. It will be interesting to see if my longer runs have prepared me for the fast paced adrenaline rush of a 5K. CoolRunning.com has a cool graphing feature that lets you create all kinds of cool graphs based on the data that is entered each week. I decided to see my "race pace" for my last 4 races. I was surprised to see how fast I got in just a short period of time.

Luc's Average Race Pace
Week of	8:00 |	8:13 |	8:26 |	8:39 |	8:52 |	9:05 |
Mar 4, 2007	8:31
Mar 11, 2007	8:19
Apr 1, 2007	8:00
Apr 8, 2007	8:52

Of course the last race had a good excuse, so I don't get too down on myself about it; that race meant more to me than just the clock. Anyway, I'm fully healthy now and rather excited to see what I got. I'm sure I'll blog about my results.

Look Who's Blogging

Well, I just found out a couple of Data Dynamics employees are blogging now:

• Pilgrim - http://jon-pilgrim.blogspot.com
• T.K. - http://tommykelly.blogspot.com

Check them out!

Cool Mouse

Innovation at its best: Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000

This mouse has all the utilities you need to be AFK and still manage your power point presentations. The only thing it is missing is the laser pointer... wait it has that too. :)

Oklahoma Code Camp 2007 and More...

Data Dynamics is sponsoring the Oklahoma Code Camp 2007. James and I attended Tulsa TechFest last year and had a great time. We will be attending the Tulsa TechFest "2007" event as well. We have nothing but great things to say about the .NET Development community out there. Last years' event was a smash hit! It was also where I got interviewed by Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell of .NET Rocks. I'm still elated about it...

This years event will be a tight squeeze for me, because I'm running my first half marathon that next morning. I hope to sleep on the plane on the way home and get ready for the big race. It should be an interesting weekend to say the least. :)

My fingers are cold right now.

Yes, I have blogger A.D.D.... Hey, it's my blog!

Class of 97 NHS Hottie

Jennifer is having her 10 year class reunion next month. The class put up a pretty cool webpage for the reunion and I checked it out. They put the hottest chick in the 97 class on their home page. See for yourself: www.nhs97reunion.com.

Hubba - hubba. :) It's funny that she is the one (of hundreds in her class) that has everybody guessing after all these years; a poster child for "where are they now". I'm sure she is going to have all kinds of questions at the reunion due to this picture. They should just update it with:

Mike Hinze - 2007: Teacher
Jen Goodin - 2007 : Mommy / Total Hottie

SubVersion and TortoiseSVN

James has posted a great article on how to setup and configure SubVersion and TortoiseSVN for file versioning. Check it out: 10 minute guide to starting with subversion and tortoisesvn « Mr. .NET

Fortunately, I had the luxury of a live chat window from the author himself. ;) Thanks James! It's working like a top...

Learn to Love Running

Ok, so I'm blogging away and I start following links to cool sites and I came across a whole bunch of cool running links. I read this one article and it just hit home for me: Learn to Love Running

"Hi, my name is Lucas Hardbarger and I'm addicted to running."

It really is how I feel these days; every where I go and everything I do, I'm thinking about running. I remember drinking beer with my buddy Corey on New Years Eve of 2007 and we talked about starting a running regiment (full story). Well... I've stuck with it and I'm damn glad I did. It's to a point now that I can't stop running. I did 4 miles yesterday, only because I got back to my car (I could've kept going). I actually have the urge right now to go run... I'm a freak, I know.

The other day, I set out to run 4 miles and ended up running 6, for no good reason. It took me 1 hour and 6 minutes to do it, but I didn't stop running that entire hour. I just chugged along and got lost in my own thoughts. I've noticed that, as I've started running more and more miles, I'm getting slower. Every now and then I'll set out and do a couple of 9 minute miles, but for now the 10:30 miles are fine with me. My 6 mile run ended up being something like 11 minute miles, but I felt great afterwards and could have kept going if I wanted to.

When I started running, I weighed in at 220lbs, today I'm down to 205lbs and still going (down that is). I'm continuing to drop pounds each week. My injury had me laid up for a while and (wow), it was way too easy to put the weight back on. I'm back to running now and I feel great! Something else that is cool: The wife is noticing. :)

Ok, that's it! I'll be back, gotta go get my shoes on...

Sorting and Searching Algorithms

I found this link somehow and decided to post it for all to read:
Sorting and Searching Algorithms

The front page has a java applet on it that sorts a list of bars. If you click each one once real quick, you can sit back and see who wins everytime. It would be cool to show each algorithm like this to see how they perform. Anyway, it kept me busy reading and learning for over a half hour and I wanted to have a reference for later retrieval.

Enjoy... if you so choose to indulge. :P