Some People Claim There's a Woman to Blame...

As mentioned before, my lovely wife and daughter got me a fabulous 40th birthday present.  I was to spend a fun filled week on a dive boat in the Bahamas with my buddy Brad.  My wife (a planner) had this worked out 2 years in advance.  She presents it to me on my birthday in March.  Sounds great right.  It is.  Except the trip is for the last week in AUGUST!  Talk about anticipation.

Flash forward 5 months.  I'm torn, I cannot wait to get on this boat but...I've been anticipating it for 5 effin' months.  Once it's over it's over. It's the marathon blues all over again.  It's the Event!  You plan for it. You dream about it.  What do you do once it's over?  Can it possibly live up to everything you've built it up to in your mind?!

T-minus 5 days: I get a call from Brad.  The dive service has emailed a warning.  Tropical Storm 9 has begun to build.  Last chance to buy trip insurance before it becomes a named storm.  2 hours before the official naming I buy trip insurance through DAN (Divers Alert Network).

T-minus 4 days: Tropical Storm Issac is heading toward Cuba and Hispaniola.

T-minus 3 days: Hurricane Isaac hits Hispaniola.

T-minus 2 days: Cuba!

D-Day: 7:45 phone call cancelling trip.

Dammit...it's all about the comma.

Red Rocker Part Deux

Background is complete and now it's time to bring the Red Rocker to life.

 Step 1: As I mentioned in Part 1, I work from back to front so I started with Sammy's face and arms basically all the skin tones.  I use a lot of white and burnt sienna.  I like a small short bristle brush by Windsor and Newton.

Step 2: Next I block in the red tee and lay down the foundation for his trademark mop of hair.  On the shirt I opt for not doing as lot of shading and instead use texture to create flow.

Step 3: Here I added some details to the guitar strap, t-shirt logo, necklace and add some detail to the hair.  The hair is a wild curly main and has layer on layer of color.

Step 4: Here I start blocking in color on the guitar body and neck.

Step 5:  Finish the guitar and clean up a few area.  All done and ready for a nice thick glossy clear coat.

Red Rocker Part 1

I've done several portraits for friends, family and friends of family.  I decided for fun to record the process of my latest one. I've already done one painting for the same person of Tina Turner for his wife. They want to rock n' roll a room in their home. He's a huge Sammy Hagar fan so we're going to add Sammy to the mix.

Here's Tina:

Have some cake!

Sammy is going to be a little different than Tina.  With Tina it's all about the movement, shaking your tail feathers. No airbrush or blending I wanted thick paint and heavy brush strokes with a lot of movement.  Sammy's about ball's out good old fashioned in-your-face guitar rock n' roll.


Step 1 is to get as much info as possible. He chose a photo he liked and a color scheme. Sammy's gotta have red there's no other option. It needs purple in there though to tie it into the room and the Tina Turner painting.

Step 2 Put Sammy on the stereo (that's a really big ipod for those under 20) and hit shuffle!  You gotta have the right mood to paint.

Step 3 Put the picture on canvas.  I made 2- 24" x 30" canvases one for Tina and one for Sammy.  I then use a thumbnail around 5" at the longest and project that onto the canvas.

Step 4 Start with the back ground.  There's more than one way to rock and there's more than one way to paint.  Everyone has their preferences.  I always work from back to front and darkest color to lightest.

I blocked in the basics with a wide flat brush.  I just slapped this on acrylics don't blend easily so this stage was color foundation and texture.  The background is purple and blue smokey stage fog lit by colored stage lights.

Step 5 I am using my airbrush to even out the colored smoke.  I want the background transitions to be smooth so that the bold strokes of Sammy jump at the viewer.

Left Side Before

Left Side After

Right Side Before

Right Side After

BEFORE

AFTER

Back ground is pretty much done come back for part 2 to see how Sammy turns out.

Pirate turned 40

The Little Rock Marathon was behind me and 40 was suddenly here.  I "let'" my lovely wife and our daughter give me my bday present early.  It's a trip aboard the Juliette to scuba dive in the Bahamas for a week with my great friend Brad.  I cannot express how awesome a present this is to me.  I will dive the Bimini Road.  The site everyone thought was Atlantis when it was discovered in the 60's.  A little closer to the trip I'll go into details about it.

The trip was given to me at dinner with our closest friends.  I had a great steak prepared by Brad with a great wine (don't know the name but it was great).  All in all a great night.

The actual birthday day was a bit of a let down.  I was in Vegas for a trade show.  That sounds a lot better than it actual is.

It started off promising.  With Buffett blasting in the headphones I got as a birthday present last year, I took a 40 minute run off the Las Vegas strip as the sun came up.  The birthday run was inspired by a cyclist friend who bikes a mile for every year.  Obviously a mile a year was stupid for a runner so I took some liberties.  I took the picture below with my phone of the sun coming up over the mountains.

I was wearing these.  Do you remember them from last birthday?

Then it was off to work.  Trade show glad handing and sales from 9-6.  That's mountain time so the body says 6pm is really 8pm!  

Then rest of the day was uneventful.  Work the tradeshow.  Most of the rest of the coworkers were tired of each other everyone went their separate ways.  Wound up eating at a deli and learning to play Pai Gow poker.

That was it.  Yay, I'm 40.

I still have my present to look forward to.  Do you think Bimini is really Atlantis?

No Bloody Nipples

Welcome to the 10th annual Little Rock Marathon.

The short version is I survived.

The long version is well... the long version.  My ideal goal was not met.  The sub 4 hour marathon.  Under 4 seems to be the goal for most non-elite athletes.  It was what I felt I was capable of doing.  It wouldn't be easy but I really thought it was doable.  I was wrong.

I'll detail the experience as best I can from start to finish.  To say this winter was mild would be a huge understatement.  I knew if we had a hot day I would be screwed.  It started great.  The temperature was roughly 38-43 degrees to start.  Perfect marathon weather.  My lovely wife Angie came to watch me run for the first time and saw me off at the start.  So far so good.

I lined up with the 4 hour pace group.  It was led by 2 twenty something young women.  The average pace for a 4  hr marathon is 9:10/mile.  They started out at around 8:45-8:30/mile.  In hindsight I understand they had a strategy to make up for time lost later but it ruined me.  I had a good 5K at around 26 minutes. I averaged a 9:05 10K pace.  I took 7 minutes off my previous LR Half Marathon time.  Good so far right?

Now I'm running low on gas and it's heating up big time.  Any other day it would've been gorgeous.

I get to the Hillcrest area around 10:30.  I did not do my homework and check out this part of the course.  It's why the pacers went out so hot.  It sucked.  I cannot be any more plain than that.  I was cocky going into this because of how strong I felt on the hills in the Soaring Wings Half Marathon in October.  After 14 miles the hills were horrible.  My own fault.  Next time I'm prepared.  Stairmaster here I come.

In the Hillcrest area Michelob had a tent set up and was giving out free beer to the runners.  I couldn't bring myself to drink one but I will never say another bad word about Michelob.

What goes up must come down.  The down hill part was okay we'll skip that part.


Bottom of the hill mile 18.  Hello Rebsamen Park.  Why do I remember mile 18 was Rebsamen Park?  because it was at mile 18 in pain at the base of the hills I experienced my first leg cramp.  I don't mean first of the race I mean first ever cramp while active in any kind of sport.  I've had a problem with muscle cramps before. I played most sports available here but NEVER had a muscle cramp while participating.  NO entirely sure what caused it.  I was hydrating.  I was using gelsI was lucky a few stretches and a little walking and I was okay to keep going.


Miles 18 and 19 took forever.  19 to 20 was by the golf course and to your right were all the people ahead of you separated only by orange cones. So easy to just join them.  They all looked so much happier so much closer to the finish.  Eventually we split to the point where there was a median between us.  This section seemed to take forever because it looked like at any time you would be turning around joining all the happy people on the other side.  It's a good thing I didn't give in to temptation and join the happy people early because there was a checkpoint at mile 20 right before you turn around.  Somewhere in this period when it was sunny and 70 degrees i started getting a bit nauseous as well.  Not bad thank goodness, just enough to further piss me off.

I'm going to interject at this time to talk about the various volunteer musicians.  Through the first 13 miles there are bands/individuals playing and/or singing songs for all the runners.  I usually run with a mp3 player but I don't race with it because I really enjoy the variety of live performers along the course.  Thank you to all musicians who performed for the runners at the 2012 Little Rock Marathon.  That said there was a definite lack of live music after mile 13.  There were a couple DJ's and a guitar player.  I will say I really enjoyed the guitar player with his Les Paul and Marshall half stack on the side of the road.  If he had beer I probably would have stopped and stayed to listen.

You turn around at mile 20 and follow the golf course back towards the Rivermarket down Cantrell past Cajun's Wharf.  This is not the most scenic part of the marathon.  I didn't like this part.  It was more walking than running and my spirit was ebbing.  Frustration was high at this point because not only was my 4:00 time completely and utterly screwed but I got passed by the 4:40 group.  The only thing that I can say that's positive about this period is that I recognized where I was and what was necessary to finish.

Mile 22 was a little better but not much.  Mile 24-25 there was another group giving out beer this time I gave in and drank a cup.  I tasted it for the rest of the race.  Glad I didn't give in to the temptation of Michelob.

Then came the Parrothead Club water station.  My neighbors Shari and Les were working it.  The funny part of that is they were in the front looking for me but completely missed me.  They almost jumped out of their skin when I grabbed them and gave them a hug.

Buoyed by seeing friends I picked up my pace a little.  Last mile or so I ran along with a nice lady.  I'm really good at remembering faces but I was mentally fried and could not pick this lady out of a lineup if my life depended on it.  We had a brief discussion comparing notes on the intense desire to either go fetal and cry or vomit.  It was comforting to share with someone so there in the same place at the same time.  I got a bit of a second wind and told I was choosing to vomit and picked up the pace so I could finish as strong as possible.

I did finish.  It took 4 hours and 50 minutes of continuous motion.  It was not the experience I wanted, expected or hoped it would be.  So there are now questions.  Was it worth it?  Yes very much so.  Why?  You learn more about yourself through adversity then through triumph.  Will I do it again?  Right now with 2 months behind me the answer is yes.

Let's catch up

After the personal victory at the half-marathon in October I see in retrospect my mistakes.  Not in the race itself i ran it just as planned.  My mistake was in recovery.  I had a Halloween party that night so after running a personal best 13.1 miles I partied and drank until after midnight (no nap).  Same thing happened on New Years Eve except you can substitute 13.1 for 16.  I was so intent on making sure I got my miles in that I was not resting properly.  You may be asking yourself why do I bring this up in mid January?  It has finally caught up with me.

I was making comments almost daily in my running log about being tired and concern about overtraining and needing a break.  I even went to Runners World and took their "Are You Overtraining?" quiz.  According to the test I was doing fine.  When out of the blue a 24 hour stomach flu. It came complete with chills, fever, nausea and various and sundry GI issues.  Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are shot no running.

Saturday I run my 16 mile long run.  It was tough but I manage with a 9:45 average.  For the first time I'm beging to doubt.  I feel like time is running out and my endurance is not where it needs to be.

I understand the concept.  You train and train and train tired so that by the time you taper everything is great and the energy and endurance is there.  Still sucks.