Cracks in the mortality armor

I passed out (blacked out or something) this morning. Getting out of bed to wake my son up, I got to the bedroom door and felt the blood flushing away from my head and just slumped over. I banged my head on the bed frame, and according to my wife was out for 5 to 10 seconds. I didn't feel anything abnormal, and the worse part was banging my head on the bed, but this may be signs of things to come.

Old age is showing up in force.

Running diary

10/10/10 -- Ran in a 5K. My time was 22:41, which was much faster than I had anticipated.

As noted in July, I was going to try to run/train on a regular basis to get in shape to run a half-marathon in under 2 hours. I kept up the training for about 3 weeks, and just totally slacked off. So it was a surprised to me that I was able to run the 5K as fast as I did. My previous 5K in July was at 24:12.

10/16/10 -- Went for a 13 miles run to see what kind of shape I was in. The results was the same as before. That is decent time up through 10 miles, but all pain after that.

I got through 3 miles at 26:10, 6 miles at 53:00 and 10 miles at 1:33:00, but after that I mostly walked, essentially all of the last 2 miles to finish the 13 miles at 2:22:00.

I'm going to try to do this once a month until the end of the year. I have 2 goals.

1st - to run the 13 miles faster 2:10:00

2nd - to run the 13 miles in less than 2:00:00

I'll report back to update my progress

half marathon challenge

When I started to regularly exercise again a couple of years ago, my fitness goal was to be able to run any distance at twice the world record time. This was a fairly reasonable goal, not too fast, but also not too slow. So far it's been easy enough to meet this goal in the shorter distances, 400m up to 10k, but beyond that, I haven't been able to meet the challenge. The biggest reason is fitness level. I'm going to have to train to be able to handle the pounding my body will take for that long of a distance. I have run/walk 13 miles 3 times. 1st time at 3 hours, 2nd time at 2h30m, and the last time at 2h10m. My goal is to do it under 2 hours. I'm going to start a 10 weeks training program to get my body in shape enough to handle running for 2 hours.

The program is from runner's world. It consists of 3 workouts a week. 1 speed, 1 tempo and 1 long run. I'll report back on my progress.

Hiking at Yosemite

Went hiking at Yosemite this past Saturday. Left the bay area at 6:30am, hiked up to yosemite fall and drove home that evening. Got home at 10pm.
The hike was very tough. It was only a 4 miles hike one-way, but it was steep most of the way. The trail is somewhat small (average 5-6 feet wide) and rocky, so you have to watch your step all the time. You don't get to take in the scenery while you're hiking, only if you stop. On the way down, it started to snow. We hiked while it snowed for about 1 hour. I'm still sore from the hike. The fall was beautiful, full of water and so tall.

Parent/Child estrangement/relationship

Boy,

I'm reading the comments for the article about parent / child estrangement and it's just gut wrenching. I don't know if this will ever happen with me, but I've seen some of this in other people's lives, and it's difficult to deal with.
Anyway, here's the link to the article:
http://www.well.blog.nytimes.com/2010/05/03
"When the ties that binds unravel"

half-marathon

I had noted last year (april 2009) that I went for a 14 miles run/walk with my wife, which took 3 hours to complete. And that I would try to cut that time to 2hrs 30 min by year's end.
In any case in september 2009, I went out for 13 miles twice.
The first time on september 6th, I reach the 6.5 miles mark at 60 minutes, and finished the 13 miles in 145 minutes (2 hours 25 minutes)
The second time on september 18th, I reach the 6.5 miles mark at 57 minutes, and finished the 13 miles in 129 minutes (2 hours 9 minutes)
My goal is to be able to finish the 13 miles in 2 hours. Which I still haven't accomplish.

Of course, the other day my 14 years old son went and ran 12 miles at 7 minutes/miles for the first 8 miles, and ran the last 4 miles at 6:45, for a total time of 83 minutes (1 hours 23 minutes). He runs cross-country for the high school varsity team, but it sure makes my time looks awfully slooow.

Divorce Rates

For some reason I decided to look into divorce statistics:
Here's some interesting nuggets:

% of married people making it to their:
05th anniversary -- 82%
10th anniversary -- 65%
15th anniversary -- 52%
25th anniversary -- 33%
35th anniversary -- 20%
50th anniversary -- 05%
of course death plays a role in some marriages not reaching those 25+ anniversaries.

And it looks like the statistics of 50% of all marriages ends in divorce is about right, but only
41% of 1st marriages ends in divorce, as compared to
60% of 2nd marriages ends in divorce
73% of 3rd marriages ends in divorce

These statistics are pretty staggering. The divorce rates for asians in america is a lot lower than the average, about 20% vs the 40%-50% rate.

My wife and I have been married for 15 years now. Hopefully we'll be around for the subsequent milestones (25th, 35th,...50th and beyond)

To those of you who are married, GOOD LUCK!!