Leaving San Francisco > Photos from the Going Away Party

I will be doing a more in depth blog post soon, but wanted to get the photos out ASAP. Amy and I are moving back to Nashville, TN and these are the photos of us and our friends at the going away party. Enjoy :)

Portland Marathon 2008 – A Success for Everyone!

Well, we did it. Amongst the long hours of work, moving to the city and other surprises… not to mention Amy Macs knee tendinitis, 6 weeks of inactivity and 4 weeks of physical therapy… we made it! Not only did we make it, we made it look goooood.

Ok, maybe not good, but we both were very happy with the race. 26.2 miles is a hard race to prepare for not only physically, but mentally as well. How do you run that far, and more importantly, how do you plan to run that far? When we started this adventure 6-7 months ago we had no idea what to expect in terms of time commitment, training hours and miles or even how fast we would try to run this thing… so we through some goal times out (pulling them from thin air) and put them out there.

Originally I thought ~4 hours would be something I could accomplish, and I would try to drag Amy along with me. But as time wore on it became more and more obvious with our short training schedule and demands at work that this would not really be possible. I adjusted my plan to be around 4:30 and Amy adjusted her schedule to be 5 hours (although she really wanted to be able to keep pace with me). While not 100% successful, we are very happy with what the results were. I ended up running 4 hours and 38 minutes and Amy ran 4 hours and 59 minutes! Success, I say!

As of this writing it has been one week since we finished our race. I will probably run one again, but Amy was only in it for the one race. Im not sure when I will be able to begin my training again, my toe nail fell off yesterday (my big toe) and it hurts to walk, let alone run. We will just have to see how soon the pain goes away so I can start moving again. Most likely I will start training for more triathlons and half marathons and find a sweet full marathon in the next few years to test me again.

I just read that Sarah Palin ran a sub 4 hour marathon… and with that, I have a new goal time. I would like to say my goal was to qualify for the Boston marathon, but to make that happen I would have to slash about 90 minutes off of my time. Ha ha ha ha!

To all of our supporters for the last few months and those who cheered us on along the route in Portland, thanks for your support, kind words and tips. You helped make this a memorable experience all around.

First Long Run with My New Garmin Forerunner 405

10 Mile Golden Gate Park Run

This past weekend Amy and I took off for a long 10 mile run. This was the first long run we did with my new Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS watch. We ran from the ocean here in San Francisco, through Golden Gate Park and back again and ended our run sipping beers and mai tais at the Park Chalet. I have to admit, this was one of the best runs Amy and I have ever been on (especially considering it was 10 miles)!

Garmin 405 Forerunner Watch

If you click on the map above or on this link, you will be connected to the Garmin website where you can review the details from the GPS data of our run. It’s not a big deal, but the data that comes from the watch is just plain interesting to look at (at least to a nerd like me). We averaged 11 minute miles for the whole run and even ran our last miles the fastest, clocking in at 9:41 for the last mile! Typically I would not be that impressed, but this was 10 miles!

Coming up in a few weeks Amy and I are planning on running the San Francisco 1/2 marathon with a goal time of around 2 hours and 10 minutes for the 13 mile race (which if you do the math, is 10 minutes per mile). This is slow for real runners, but considering this is our first long distance race, we have our fingers crossed we can make it. One month of training to go!

Wish us luck with our 1/2 marathon and full marathon training!

Mevio Shows & Channels, Now Embeddable!

A new feature just released on the Mevio site is the ability to embed videos, shows and channels found on the site in other locations. I thought I should test it out… so enjoy Amy Mac’s Fit Life below!

Status Update, Where Am I?

It has been a crazy few months so I thought I would give another quick update. The marathon training has been going great. Logging lots of miles, until, I got shin splints. I have been not running for the last week or so and have been trying to stretch and relax a bit to ease the pain. It was probably a good thing though, because I had a LOT of work to do last week as PodShow released a major upgrade to the site, as well as a name change to Mevio.

PodShow is now Mevio - the new logoSo a little bit about the name change. PodShow, the company I have worked with for the last 3+ years, has re-branded to Mevio (found at mevio.com of course). There were many reasons for this but I don’t really need to get into all of that here. If you would like a great take on the transition from one of our producers standpoints, you can check out the GeekBrief blog with Cali Lewis. She wrote up a great post on it. I am excited about the changes happening at the office and am looking forward to where the company is going.

Now back to the marathon training. In preparing for the big race, Amy and I (as well as Nick a little bit and our friends Joe and Pam) are going to run in some other races as well. Mid May we are going to be taking part in the Bay to Breakers 12k and then the San Francisco 1/2 marathon in August before we take off to the Portland Marathon in October! Lets hope my shins heal up nicely before we get too much further :)

What else? In August, Amy and I will have been married for 7 years. At that time, we will be taking our first official vacation as a couple! We have taken a weekend here and there, or went home to Tennessee for a week but still working regular hours, so this is a pretty big deal for us. We will be taking off to Hawaii (Kauai and Maui I believe) for around 10 days and if the timing works out, maybe a trip through Las Vegas on the way back to attend the Portable Media Expo… we will have to see about that one, though.

Other than that, I guess it is work as usual. Long days and nights trying to build the best online entertainment hub on the planet :) Stay tuned for more updates and photos, I have lots of them but no time to post regularly. Nick and Amy are both up to some amazing things that I can not talk about yet… but soon!