karl.tsakos.us/blog

Just a few last minute items to wrap up 2008. An overall good year. As with all years, it has had its ups and downs. I won’t dwell on the downs, at least I won’t air them publicly. But there have been some pretty good ups as well. I purchased my first house in 2008. And the good news, no buyer’s remorse. It needed work when I got it and I knew that going in. Actually, it’s better then I had expected.

I haven’t forgotten about my goal from my last entry, to run in a 5 K race around the time of my birthday. I looked around a little on the interweb and can’t find anything that month in the area. Still, I’m looking and will be consulting with some runner’s I know to see if they can help me find something. In the mean time, I continue to run to reach my goal of being able to run a 5 K by early February. Today I ran in the snow, the only one out there, which is unusual. I quite enjoyed parts of running in the snow. There were parts I didn’t like, such as the icy snow blowing in my eyes. Still, it was an overall enjoyable experience. Also, I changed up my running as I said I would. Five minutes walking, twelve minutes running, three minutes walking, twelve minutes running, then walk home from wherever I am (approximately five minutes).

I also continued with my goal of taking advantage of the proximity of Manhattan and went in last Monday to see some exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I went in with Jim and Danielle who then took me to a restaurant they like followed by a visit to the NBA Store. Not only is Manhattan busy and crowded at this time of year, but the mid-town stores are doubly so. After that, we walked to Rockefeller Center to see the christmas decorations.

I was amazed by the sheer number of people who were there. I figured a few days after Christmas and the crowds would have diminished. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Before even entering the walkway to the skating rink the sidewalk was too crowded to move. I took two minutes to cross from one side of the sidewalk to the other if you were going against the flow of people. It was astounding. Of course, while the decorations were smaller then they appeared when I was a child, they were still impressive and really shouted out, “Christmas!”

I was there for two reasons, on was just to see the display and enjoy the season. The other was to take some photos. You can see the results in the photo section of this website. It was a bit challenging to get a good shot for several reasons. First, it was night and everything was lit by flood lights. Second, the large numbers of people meant you were often getting jostled. That combined with reason three, there was no way to position yourself to take any of the iconic shots of the center. I found myself taking advantage of my stabilizing lens (purchased this year) and ability to review the shots I just took thanks to my camera being a digital SLR. Many of the shots I took were taken blind with me holding the camera at full arms length above my head and snapping away. Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite pleased with the results and you will be too.

That’s it for now. Here’s wishing you a very happy and healthy New Year.

I’ve made a goal.

That’s always been my problem, the lack of a goal. In this case a particular goal for a particular activity. The activity is running and the goal is to run a 5 K race. Not to win, and not to place, but just to run in an organized event.

I’ve toyed with running for the past few years. Mostly in the last five. I’ll start running and then I’ll stop running. I’ll hurt myself and stop running or I’ll get a cold and stop running or I’ll have too much else going on in my life and stop running. Well, now I’ve evaluated my free time and came up with a plan to ease into running so as to minimize injury. Thus far, I have worked up to five repeats of four minutes running, one minute walking with five minute warmup and cool down walks. Next week, I will change it up a little and go for twelve minutes running with a five minute walk in the middle. I will do that for one or two weeks and then switch to thirty minutes continuous running.

The time frame is tight. I need to start looking for a race for early February, around the time of my birthday. Pretty much, a 5 K (3.1 miles) is the shortest road race one can find. If I run approximately 30 minute I will be running shy of 5 K. So the race distance will not be out of the question.

The real question is if I enjoy the racing. If I don’t, that will become some lousy motivation for continued running. However, if it’s a good experience, well, I might have motivation for another race. Actually, if it’s good, I’ll do what I do with the dentist and plan my next visit before I leave the office. Okay, that might not work with racing, but I can certainly find another race to run in short order.

See, as I mentioned, the racing is the key. I know, how obvious, I have heard it for years, set a goal like a race to keep running interesting. So fine, I’ve done that.

Now, all I have to do is actually find a race to run and I’m set.

I’ll keep you posted.

… and you should too.

I’m sorry I haven’t written much lately. It’s just that I haven’t had anything I felt appropriate to put on the site. As things are changing now, I’m more settled in, I will be trying to startup the whole blogging thing again. And I promise, I will not talk about what I had for breakfast. The content will have to be of some interest or it will not be written at all.

Of course, this leaves things open to writing works of fiction just to have something here to keep the site alive. If I go that route, I will of course tag the entry as fiction.

More to come?