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Well, we can officially cross off one of my new year’s resolutions now! On Thursday (yes, Thanksgiving morning) I ran the Atlanta Half Marathon and as you can see above, finished!

My chip time was 2:10:37, putting me at right about a 9:58/mile pace. Considering I started training with the goal of 2:30 and was excited when my longest training run suggested that I may have a shot at 2:15 I was pretty damn happy with the result. I’ll be honest though, it was a little hard to watch myself slip away from possibly breaking 2:10 over the last couple miles as I slowed down. I knew I was running right around a 10  minute pace because every mile marker I passed the time ended in a ’7′ minute (27 at mile 2, 37 at mile 3, etc). By miles 6, 7 and 8 I was actually down in to the 6′s, and I think my earliest mile was around x:y6:40 so I was feeling great.

But then miles 11 through 13 showed up, and so did a lot of hills, and the shade disappeared, and suddenly I was just trying to keep moving saw those sixes slowly turn back in to sevens. I crossed mile 12 at 2:17:10 and thought I may have a shot, but it would require running my fastest mile of the race on my last 1.1 miles. Well, I ran my fastest mile, but it wasn’t fast enough. And so there I was, 37 seconds away.

The next few days were a bit of an adventure. Thursday night my knees really hurt which was a new, and quite unpleasant, feeling for me. Joint pain sucks I learned. They were mostly better by Friday although my hips were sore then. Yesterday I felt pretty much back to normal, and I’m actually going to run this evening to get back in the groove.

So there we go. 1 half marathon down, no idea how many more I’ll try or if I’ll try a marathon at some point, but it felt really good to finish that off before stuffing myself with Thanksgiving dinners for the next 3 days.

Last year I put up my New Year’s Resolutions for 2010. They were as follows:

1. Read 50 books
2. Dunk a basketball
3. Systolic BP below 120
4. Start a stats website

The final tally is:

1. I read 34 books total in 2010: the 33 posted here, plus Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh. Overall, I read 12 fiction books (2 more than the 10 I aimed for), 11 business books, 5 “about me” books, 4 sports books, 1 comedy book, and Art of War which I don’t know how to classify really.

I also have some partially finished books. I’m about 80% of the way through How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (which is awesome), halfway through the haunting short stories of Raymond Carver in Where I’m Calling From, halfway through Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson, and at least a few pages in to The Essential Drucker, a collection of Peter Drucker’s thoughts on business. The real lesson here: don’t read a bunch of books at the same time.

2. Nope. Probably made negative progress in this one over the course of the year.

3. Yup! First success. It was a mixture of medication, diet and exercise, but I got it below 120, if only for a moment. Hopefully this keeps me on the “heart-not-exploding” path.

4. Boom. Is it the kind of stats I thought it would be at the start of the year? Not even close. Does it count? You bet it does.

So there we go. 2/4 overall and I’m going to count the books thing as a pretty good showing considering how rarely I read books before this year. The dunking thing though, yikes. I only have so much longer where this is even reasonable so if I want to do it ever again, it better be soon.

And now, on to 2011!!!

This year’s resolutions have a little different flavor to them. I’ve identified 4 of the most important areas of my life (and a fifth category for “other”) and then found something to do/improve in all of them. With that in mind, away we go:

Health – Run a half marathon
“What a weak goal,” you may say. “You have a year, why not do a full marathon?” Well, Mr(s). Overachiever, by doing it this way I still have the option of doing a full if I want to. Besides, while I have run semi-seriously from time to time (mostly when not getting rushed to emergency rooms with a busted appendix) there is nothing in my history that makes me think running 26 miles is a good idea. If this first part goes well, we’ll re-evaluate.

Mind – Create a mobile app
This was the hardest one by far to come up with. In fact, I’m not even sure I like it enough to fully commit to it yet. I’ve always been proud of being a relatively smart and knowledgeable person, but just how do you go identifying some way to improve that without testing? I think my 50 books resolution last year was a pretty good compromise, but I didn’t want to copy it.

So how does this connect with mind? Well, I figure there’s a whole lotta stuff I need to learn to make this happen. Some of it I’ve already started, a lot of it I will learn as I go. However, this is a learning exercise for me so I’m putting it here. I’m not trying to make money on it (although I won’t turn it down) so it’s not business, and I already have a really good “other” resolution so I didn’t want to put this there.

Business – Get paid by 20 people
The absolute bare minimum of revenue from that number of clients would be ~$36,000 for 2011. Not enough to live off of certainly, but we have pretty solid reason to believe that we won’t be only doing the bare minimum of work for many of our customers. I didn’t want to set a public revenue goal (although we are talking about one internally) just because I don’t want all you people coming around asking me for money (or realizing how broke I am)!

For the purpose of this exercise, a single company using us for multiple jobs counts as 1 client. However, if that single company is dealing with clients of their own (such as a 3PL or consulting firm) then each different client of their we do work for counts separately. We have a huge meeting coming up next Tuesday, so this goal could either be really easy or really hard after that.

Friends/Family – Stay closer to those important to me
I’m awful at this and have been for quite some time. There was a summer in early high school where I barely saw my friends from school because I never called them, thinking that if they wanted to hang out with me they’d call me. I’m certainly better now than I was then, but I’m making a point to improve even more over the next year.

Other – Figure out my life goals
Ted Leonsis was on Bill Simmons’s podcast (The B.S. Report) recently. You may have seen the post I made quoting him about how owners who give away tickets are killing their teams. Well he also has a public list of goals that he want to accomplish during his life and a running scorecard of how they are all doing. I like that a lot and therefore am going to do it myself.

Since a list of goals I want to accomplish over the next 60 or so years of my life is going to be pretty comprehensive, I feel like I shouldn’t rush into making it. So, instead of just thinking for a day and throwing a bunch of stuff out there I’m going to do this a little slower, making sure that I’m covering all my bases here. It will almost certainly be broken up into categories like Ted’s, so any suggestions on categories that need filling or goals that need doing would be great starting points for me.

And that’s the plan for 2011. 5 goals, all reachable, but all a significant improvement over where I am now. Let’s see if I can better 2010′s completion rate.

This installment brought to you by sports video clips from YouTube!

Reverse Pool Jumping (Deadspin)
I feel good that I can jump up and grab a basketball rim.  Jarron Gilbert, a guy you’ve never heard of out of San Jose State, can jump out of three feet of water.  And by jump out I mean, go from feet on the bottom of the pool, to feet on dry land, all in one fell swoop.  Not bad for a dude clocking in at 6’5″ 287.

Soccer = Terrorism (The Beautiful Game)
Fox News . . . really?  Soccer players and those who like to watch are “people who are basically terrorists?”  I understand that it’s satire, but my brain hurts just from hearing you speak.

Mascots Play HORSE Differently Than You or I (Deadspin)
From halfcourt, backwards, over the head, off the other mascot’s crotch, nothing but net.

It’s Not Traveling Unless Duke Says It’s Traveling (Deadspin)
Apparently Duke has their own 12-step program going on these days.  Only instead of using it to kick an addiction (like JJ Redeyes could’ve used), it’s a method of getting from the 3 point line to 8 feet further back without actually dribbling the ball.  Seriously, watch this.  It’s ridiculous.

And two non-sports links, mostly for Gouda’s enjoyment

Who Knew Bad Religion Was So Rich (The Luxist)
Guitarist Brett Gurewitz’s house in the Hollywood Hills is up for sale.  For $2.795 million.  And it’s hella nice.  Only downside is the doorbell playing a muzak version of 21st Century (Digital Boy).

Bear Sleeping Bag (Gizmodo)
Rawr.

I finally feel like I’m at a point where I can take a break from everything, so that’s what I did/am doing today.  No schoolwork, no internship applications, no running.  Nothing.  I just watched Outside Providence for the first time with Els and now I’m gearing up for a How I Met Your Mother and 24 nightcap.  Pretty excited about the way this is happening.

Anyway, on to the stories I found enjoyable this week.

Dreamcast: A Forensic Retrospective (Eurogamer)
I love my Dreamcast.  Actually, I have two of them because one broke when my brother pulled out the controller while it was turned on and that toasted a fuse.  I was too angry to wait and try to get it fixed so I went on eBay and immediately bought another with about 50 burned games and a real copy of Metropolis Street Racer, which turned out to be the greatest game ever.  Of course, when I took the Dreamcast in it cost like $20 to fix, so then I had two working consoles.  The fact that it never really caught on caused me to lose a little bit more faith in humanity.  If I could only ever play two video game systems again it would be the Dreamcast and the Nintendo 64, no doubt.

If It’s Not Broke, Doesn’t Mean It’s Optimal (Mark Cuban)
Mark Cuban gives a couple examples of times he actually helped the NBA, like calculating for them why a clear path foul should be two free throws and the ball, and how player advantage calls were abused.  I know he gets a lot of crap for his antics, but it’s nice to know that somebody with a brain is actively looking for ways to make the NBA better.

Bigger Numbers Trick Your Mind Into Buying (Lifehacker)
We’ve looked at some studies for things like this in my marketing class and I love it.  There are all these little tricks that cause your mind to see something that isn’t there, like having tall and skinny verse short and wide, or, in this case, denoting something in cents rather than dollars.  And the best part is that once you know the tricks, they don’t work nearly as well on you anymore.  Don’t let the man hold you down.

Sleazy measures for sad times (Venture Beat)
So, yeah, shockingly enough that Cash4Gold company is pretty scummy all around.  I know, you can’t believe it either.  I myself almost fell over out of shock after hearing that a company that advertises giving you money no questions asked for old jewelry might not actually have your best interests at heart.  Some of the stories are impressively bad though.

And, finally, 3 links that have some pictures that may make a good background for your desktop.

Old video game levels as desktop pictures (Lifehacker)
God Caught on Google Street View Giving the World a Hug (Gizmodo)
Traffic Triggers Lightning (Gizmodo)

It’s awesome outside, 72 degrees and no clouds.  Just an amazing day.

I got up at 630 this morning, went running for about 45 minutes in PERFECT running weather of 55 degrees.  It was a little harder than I was hoping (damn you Halloween candy) but I survived.  Then I had a Chik-fil-a chicken biscuit for breakfast as a reward and felt much better.

Went in to school, did a qualifying interview with career services.  Now I’m finishing up a little GRA work so I have a reason to get paid to go to school.

After this I’ll be heading down to Ray’s to have a few drinks and some pizza with a classmate and talk about a business idea.  Then I’m hopping in the car with Elsberry and his brother Ken and we’re trekking up to Chapel Hill to see the Georgia Tech/UNC game.  Pictures will follow, hopefully happy ones.

So yeah, basically my day rocks.  If you want to feel similarly, I suggest leaving work now and going outside.

I’m feeling kinda out of it lately, so excuse me if the posts slow down a bit this week.  I haven’t figured out exactly what’s up yet, but I’m going to try to recharge for a bit.

Anyway, on to the links:

Chimpanzee on a Segway (Gizmodo)
I have no idea what’s going on in this video, but a chimp steals a Segway, rides away on it, and then crashes in the woods.

What Apple could buy with it’s cash (VentureBeat)
Apple has $24.5 billion in cash or cash equivalents, so someone decided to figure out what companies they could buy with that.  The most surprising to me: they could buy Blockbuster 100 times.

Bill Gates has a new company.  That’s all we know.  (Gizmodo)
Obviously dude got bored quick after leaving Microsoft.  If nothing else they’ve got a pretty sweet logo:

School teacher runs the fastest marathon.  Doesn’t win. (Deadspin)
At the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco Arien O’Connell ran the fastest time by 11 minutes, but didn’t get anything because she had not registered in the Elite group.  Well that kinda sucks.

-Saw Pineapple Express today.  Funny, but not Superbad funny.

-UGA is 5th in ESPN’s bottom 10 (sweet logo)

- MLS Elo ratings are up: http://mlselo.f2f2s.com

- Explanation of rankings are in a 9 page pdf here. It’s a little in depth but I’ll cover the basics tomorrow.

- Waking up in 5 hours, 30 minutes to watch USA v Japan in Olympic soccer.  You should too.

- Ran a little over 3 miles in 96º heat at a pace much better than I thought I could run.  Felt like hot, sweaty, stinky death afterwards.  Last August I was in much better weather.

- I’ve been listening to a lot of Elliott Smith lately.  I’m pretty sure that greatly increases the probability that I stab myself in the heart twice, but I’m not sure by how much.  We’ll say a 10% increase to like … maybe 0.002%

This is the best run I’ve had in a long, long time.  Now, that might be mostly due to me waiting until it got down to 75 degrees after the rain, or it might be due to me starting slowly thanks to being so sore from playing golf on Sunday that it hurt every time I took a step for the first half mile.  Whatever the cause, I like it.

Plus, I got to run past our new favorite bar Twain’s.  It’s a pretty awesome combination sport’s bar/hangout with tabletop shuffleboard, awesome food, and beer that’s home-brewed in the back room (try the Wit & Humor, it’s awesome).  And it’s not expensive at all.  Basically the perfect place.

Can Mike Hampton actually throw a major league pitch today?  If he does it will be his first in 35 months.

He tried this once already this season and managed to hurt himself in the bullpen throwing warm ups.  On his last pitch no less.  Not that that stopped him from going to Peachtree Tavern the following Monday to hit on 18 year old girls.

The AJC has a write-up (yes, a write-up simply on the possibilty that a player starts) in today’s edition, so if you haven’t heard enough about everything I guess you can read some there.

I’m not holding out hope, but it will be interesting to see what happens at 3:55pm.  My money is on the Braves blowing up in the top half of the first inning, Hampton coming up to bat, and then him taking a ball right off the eye-socket to sideline him for another DL stint.

I’ve finally been able to run consistently again as we’ve gotten settled in the townhome.  I am still having to get used to the surrounding areas though.

I’m finding that it seems to be a lot harder to run in new places.  Now, I’m sure this is all mental since I don’t quite no where I am and therefore have no idea when it will be over, but it’s still bothersome.  2.5 to 3 miles used to be a nice easy jog from the apartment, now it seems to legitimately tire me.  Of course, it’s a lot hillier here too, but I’m getting used to it all.

Anyway, here’s the run I’m liking a lot right now: it’s pretty much 2.25 miles of slight uphill with a quarter-mile of very steep downhill in 2 parts.

Thank you again very handy gmap-pedometer