Michael & Liz are Bloggable

I'm blogging about this now because I don't know how much time I will have the rest of the week. This weekend I am running the Blue Ridge Relay. Here's a link to the site, in case you are curious to read more. The best way to describe it is just to answer both the questions I had at first as well as questions other people have asked me. Most people who read this blog and don't talk to me too terribly often wouldn't know what I'm talking about, so I figured this method would be best.

What is the Blue Ridge Relay? It's a 208 mile relay race starting in southern Virginia (Grayson Highlands National Park) and ending in downtown Asheville, NC. It roughly follows the Blue Ridge Parkway, and some runs are actually on the parkway. But each team, and there are about 100 teams, gets a group of 6-12 people together and you run the entire thing non-stop. Our team has 12 people because that is psychotic enough.

How did you get involved with this? It's almost like Six Degrees of the Team Captain. A guy who used to work with Meg who is married to Matt asked Matt if he wanted to run and he said "no way, that sounds miserable, but sure". Matt heard they needed more people and asked me to run and I said "no way, that sounds miserable, but sure". Matt also got another friend of ours, Moose, to run, so it's almost like Matt is a quarter of the team.

How far are you running individually? It averages out to 16 miles per person. I am doing 15.4 miles of it.

When is it? Apparently the race officially starts Friday September 17th at 7:30AM but not all teams start at that time. Because some teams are faster than others, they start later so that everyone can finish relatively close to each other. So there really is no way of knowing when we'll start. This team last year finished in 28 hours, but some teams took 34 hours. So we could start anywhere from 7:30AM to 1:30 PM. I'd probably guess around Noon for us. There is really no way to tell until race day... when we're told.

How long will this take? Like I said, the team we are on finished in 28 hours last year so we'll finish Saturday afternoon. Only half the team is the same from last year though, so there's no way of knowing how long it'll take us. They averaged a 7:56 minute per mile pace and that sounds about right for our pace. The team name has changed since last year too, we are the "Runegades" this year.

What are the logistics? Each runner in a group of 12 does 3 legs, so there are a total of 36 legs to run of the relay race. There are 2 vans. Each van has 6 runners. I am going up with Van 1 and camping on Thursday night at the state park where the race starts. Van 1 will drop off and pick up runners 1-6 as they run. At the checkpoint in which runner 6 is done, Van 2 will be meeting there to drop off runner 7. Van 1 then goes to checkpoint 13 to wait and Van 2 drops off and picks up all the runners 7-12 until they are done. At checkpoint 13, runner 1 goes again and it continues like that.

Which runner are you? Runner 1. I'm psyched to be starting the race! Woo hoo!

How far are your legs? My first leg is 4.0 miles 900 feet downhill. I'm going to try to fly through that, I'm aiming for 30 minutes. My second leg (the 13th total) is 7.1 miles with a 400 foot ascent and 400 foot descent in the middle. I'd be happy with a time under an hour. My last leg (the 25th overall) is 4.3 miles and basically flat with a 150 foot hill at the end. I'll aim for roughly 32 minutes for that one. Not sure how difficult 150 feet is, but I imagine I'll be tired after the long night, no sleep, and lots of running.

It will be tough. We have to run in the middle of the night with reflective vests and headlamps in the middle of the blue ridge mountains. We'll be fighting sleep to stay awake for the legs we have to run at night and we'll be sitting in a van with 5 other smelly, gross people from having run really far and really fast. Hopefully each check point has a bathroom so I can take a bird bath after my run.

I love taking on new challenges like this. I could not be more psyched or have more anticipation for the weekend. It really will be an adventure. I'll have to bring the camera and take tons of pictures. Hopefully this turns into a yearly thing for me, Matt, and Moose. Maybe we'll start our own team one day.

Someone re-tweeted this article today and one thing really resonated with me. Here in this article in Outside Magazine, Ironman Champion Chrissie Wellington couldn't have put it any better. I like setting goals and going after them and I just feel like inside me I got this burning desire to go for something harder or bigger when it comes to athletics.

"But most of all, I am motivated by that little something inside. That seed that won't rest until I know I have fulfilled my potential and been the best that I can be. I think deep down we all have that seed, that little voice. I just think some people are scared to listen to it, scared to try, scared of failure. Fear of the unknown could have stopped me giving up my career back in 2007 and having a go at professional triathlon. Luckily for me, I quashed that fear--and instead listened to the voice inside that told me never to think 'what if,' the seed that compels me to try and reach new, difficult, and, yes, daunting goals."

Here is a link to the full article: Ironman Champ Chrissie Wellington's M.O.

I love that phase "fulfill my potential". Fulfill your potential.

I have been thinking about ways to blog about things that are more relevant to other people. Blogging about personal feelings or my running goals isn't exactly relevant to other people and therefore not always interesting to people who come to the blog. Since I love football and most people like football, I figured I'd try incorporating that a little bit.

I've always enjoyed seeing people make weekly picks for the NFL games, so I'm going to start doing this as well. It also makes it relevant to a lot of people because I'm picking every team's game. I'll also be keeping track of my weekly record and yearly totals, and hopefully will be able to compare it to the experts. I hope I can keep it up, blogging on a weekly basis might prove to be difficult sometimes. Here are all the games and all my picks:

Minnesota @ New Orleans:	Minnesota
Miami @ Buffalo:	Miami
Detroit @ Chicago:	Chicago
Oakland @ Tennessee:	Tennessee
Cincinnati @ New England:	Cincinnati
Carolina @ New York Giants:	Carolina
Atlanta @ Pittsburgh:	Atlanta
Cleveland @ Tampa Bay:	Cleveland
Denver @ Jacksonville:	Jacksonville
Indianapolis @ Houston:	Indianapolis
Arizona @ St. Louis:	St. Louis
Green Bay @ Philadelphia:	Green Bay
San Francisco @ Seattle:	San Francisco
Dallas @ Washington:	Washington
Baltimore @ New York Jets:	Baltimore
San Diego @ Kansas City:	San Diego

Overall Record: 0-0

Wow, I just realized that 11 of my picks are visiting teams. I might get rocked this week. We'll see...

I had to take the Bengals in Week 1. If I were completely impartial, I'd probably take the Patriots, but what kind of fan would I be if I didn't take the Bengals?? As far as a season guess, I think I'd go with 10-6 and barely missing the playoffs. That's probably a very safe guess, but if I were to change it, I'd go on the 9-7 side. I want to believe they are going to be very very good because they certainly have the potential, but we'll find a way to screw it up somehow.

I had New Orleans in the first game. Then I heard Adrian Peterson guarantee the win, and who am I to go against what he says? He convinced me, I got the Vikings. Although he also said he could rush for 2500 yards, so maybe he's more psychotic than confident.

I don't have too many surprise picks here. Maybe Buffalo, Atlanta, Cleveland, and St. Louis? I think Bradford will light it up and Delhomme (as much as it pains me to say this) might briefly return to his 2004 form. They all have very winnable games in week 1 too.

I'd say Washington is a surprise pick too, but I have a reliable source (Matt) that says Dallas has been terrible in the preseason. So I'm sticking to that advice.

This morning I had an appointment to donate platelets at 7:30AM. I made the appointment back in July before realizing exactly what day September 6th was. Who cares though, I probably would have been up with the dogs anyway. So I sucked it up and went.

During the donation, Olena, the woman who was drawing my blood, taps my arm and says "you're really lucky today" and I said "why is that?" and she said "Because there is someone at the hospital waiting for your donation right now". I have always wondered about that process. Who gets my blood? For what reason? How does it help them? I mean I can search on Google as many times as I want, but that only gives general overviews of platelet processes. Here was someone offering me direct and relevant information on where this red stuff running out of my arm is going.

This set my mind running with questions, all of which she didn't answer too well at all or maybe I just didn't understand her science-speak. But I will try to do my best to outline them and give her brief response:

• How do you know that?
  They have a sheet in the back with a list of the appointments who are donating directly to another person. Mine was one of them.
  
  
• So they are at the hospital now?!?
  Yes, either now or this afternoon, but the blood is going straight over to the hospital once I was done.
  
  
• I thought all of our donations went to someone?!
  Yes they do, but most of the time they are used for general purposes. People who aren't that sick can have anyone's donations because they have the antibodies to accept different platelets, but people who are very sick can only have blood from someone who is a direct "HLA" match.
  
  
• So the person getting my donation is very sick?
  Yes, they are extremely sick. So they can only accept platelets from someone who is an exact "HLA" match. You're blood and their blood are identical which is why you're blood is going to them.
  
  
• What are they suffering from?
  She didn't know that.
  
  
• Will my having allergy issues today hurt them?
  No, that won't have any effect.
  
  
• How often do you have exact matches like this?
  Not that often.

I can't think of any other questions I asked her but I grilled her and I know I asked some of the same questions twice because I had no idea on the science behind her answers. Also don't pay attention to the scientific accuracy to my answers above, I might have heard her wrong because I was trying to listen to her answers while still watching "Clash of the Titans".

This conversation got me thinking though, why isn't there more transparency between donation givers and receivers. Probably because they want to keep the privacy of who is sick or whatever, but I think if I were sick I would very badly want to thank the person who donated for me.

I have to say, I have always loved donating blood but this situation just floored me. How much more real can it get? I didn't go to 8 years of medical school. I didn't go through nursing school. I have most likely not contributed to any products that have helped someone with a life-threatening disease. But today I drove over to the Red Cross and provided something a doctor or nurse could not. All it took was a small inconvenience from me in both time and a slight pinch in both arms in order to help someone who may be suffering from an illness like cancer. There's really no better feeling. It just reiterated how much I love being involved in something so awesome.

If you ever are interested, I'd be happy to send you the phone number to make an appointment for a donation. You watch a movie, get snacks at the end, and help save someone's life.

We have been slacking on using some free (sorta) baseball tickets for a while so in the final weekend of minor league baseball, we put them to good use and went to the Durham Bulls game last night (Triple-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays):


And then tonight we went to the Carolina Mudcats game. They are the Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. There were a bunch of Reds hats all over the place so I was feeling a bit nostalgic. I felt the need to join in so I wore my Reds hat with pride.


The pictures are terrible because I took them with my phone. I'm realizing more and more lately, and Liz would probably disagree with this completely, that posting pictures and viewing pictures is less about the quality and more about the information presented. You get the point with both pictures that we were at a baseball game and also get an idea about roughly where we were sitting. That's really all you need to know.

The weather for both games was fantastic though. Started out around 80 both nights and finished in the mid-60's. It's so incredibly refreshing seeing as all Summer I've been yearning for the cooler weather. Ugh, I hate involuntary sweating. Amen Fall.

Gryffin actually sat down next to Liz like this. For some reason he really likes sitting up. He does it more often than you'd think. How can you not love that face?

When I first listed all the movies, I thought I was going to give them all terrible reviews. But they actually weren't all that bad. With new TV seasons starting back up, our movie watching might be slowing down.

1. New In Town (2009) - 3 stars - It was a really cute romantic comedy. Totally predictable, but what do you expect from romantic comedies?
   
2. Land of the Lost (2009) - 4 stars - I expected a train wreck of a movie but instead got CLASSIC Will Ferrell. It had TONS of sweet quotes:
   
   Dr. Rick Marshall: It boils down to two simple words.
   Matt Lauer: Renewable biofuels.
   Dr. Rick Marshall: Close. Time warps.
   
   "Oh, crapballs. This is one of those situations where dumping piss on your head is a bad idea." - Rick Marshall
   
   "Where's my laser pointer? Never mind." - Rick Marshall
   
   
3. The Laramie Project (2002) - 3 stars - Really a bummer of a movie but you can't expect anything else when you know what it's based on. It was definitely a different kind of movie though, documentary style but done by actors.
   
4. Frost/Nixon (2008) - 4 stars - Super super educational. We didn't know anything about Watergate and now I feel like I'm well versed. This is of course assuming the movie was true to history.
   
5. Taken (2008) - 5 stars - This was a phenomenal movie. It had you engaged the whole time and interested. One of those movies where I didn't check the clock to see when it would end. I also learned 2 things, Liam Neeson is awesome, and karate chops work EVERY time.
   
6. The Wrestler (2008) - 2 stars - We got this movie because it was up for a bunch of Academy Awards, and once again that proves to mean nothing. Mickey Rourke put on a good performance, but nothing could help the wet-blanket plot.
   
7. Toy Story (1995) - 4 starts - This was my first time seeing this movie and it was good. There are not a lot of animated movies that I'm willing to see twice though, and this is not one of them. It was good, but not so terrific that I'd enjoy it a second time.
   
8. The Hangover (2009) - 4 stars - I really liked this movie but it stresses me out. All I can think of while watching this is "what would i do?!?" and honestly, I might just roll over and quit life. Too many problems occur in too little time that would immensely ruin your life. I mean it started out a disaster with the purchase of that ridiculous hotel room. So not like me at all.
   
9. Jumper (2008) - 3 stars - Liz didn't like this movie but I actually really enjoyed it. It was one of those movies where you just have to set aside reality and imagine what could happen in a world like that. My imagination of traveling the world went wild.
   
10. Formula 51 (2002) - 1 star - Awful, awful, awful. Not worth anyone's time. Samuel L. Jackson is always awesome, but this movie was intolerable.
    
11. Transporter 3 (2008) - 2 stars - It was forgettable mainly because I had to read the overview to remember what it was about. Really enjoyed the bracelet bomb concept though.
    
12. Night at the Museum 2 (2009) - 3 stars - Out of context with the first movie, this was horrible. But if you've seen the first, I guess it was OK.
    
13. Star Trek: First Contact (1996) - 2 stars - I stopped it because it was so horrible. I gave it 2 stars as opposed to 1 because I have to give it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe if I knew what in the world was going on, it might be good. I need to watch other Star Trek's and then maybe watch this again.
    
14. Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985) - 2 stars - It had a couple of semi-funny moments, but for the most part this is a kids movie, and should be left to the kids.
    
15. The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) - 1 star - Awful, awful, awful. What was the point of this movie? It was just a movie theater filler until a good movie came along.
    
16. Killer at Large: Why Obesity is America's Greatest Threat (2008) - 5 stars - I love watching a movie that provides both information and motivation. They blamed a lot of the obesity problem on companies, when really the biggest problem is with people. They had a girl who was getting liposuction at age 12 and tried to get me to sympathize with them. When you go to McDonalds for breakfast and lunch and get 2 combo meals both times, you should not be approved for such a procedure. Your parents should be drop kicked.
    
17. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (Full Series) - 5 stars - Now one of Liz and my favorite shows. We are very sad it's over.
    
18. Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 (Final Season) - 5 stars - I think it was a phenomenal ending. It was a little bit idealistic, but it was head and shoulders a better season finale than Lost.