Virginia - Day 2

Caught up with my sleep today. My cousin woke me up around 10:30 am this morning. After eating some breakfast, we went over to Starbucks to pick up 10 lbs of coffee beans. Yes, that is a lot of beans. I think it is for my mom, or my aunt like to drink a lot of coffee. My cousin then drove me around for a bit of sight seeing at Virginia Beach. We drove through the strip of VB and we even parked and I got to see the board walk. On the drive and walk, I got to see some of the route I'll be running on Sunday. From what I saw, the entire run is flat!

After Virginia Beach, we headed to one of the local malls. I ended up buying a new pair of running shoes (gah! running is expensive). Then we decided to get a run in to help me prepare for the race. We went back to my aunt's house so that I could change into some running clothes. We then go to a place called "Mount Trashmore". I kid you not! My cousin told me the path around the park was 3 miles, but after running it, it felt more like 1.5 miles. I probably missed a few loops. Oh well, after one lap, my cousin walk the path again, so I got my 3 miles for the day.

With my run out of the way, we go get some food at another mall (I was in the mood for some teriyaki and this mall had one). Before we entered the mall, my cousin tells me that this mall has alot of black people. I respond with, "ok" and didn't think much of it. As we enter, I see a few black people, nothing too unusual. Then I start seeing the stores. The window displayed black mannequins and signs were of black people. I just think to myself that maybe these first few stores were just marketing to the black crowd. We walk by more stores and the stores had similar "marketing". Then right by the food court was a barber shop. Interesting, I see stylist everywhere, but I haven't seen a barber shop in years. Except in a movie. Ok, this is a black mall. There I said it! Anyway, we have some teriyaki at the food court and we head out.

Even after having some teriyaki, my cousin has a craving for some burgers - especially white castle burger. He mentions the nearest one is in New Jersey, about "3 hours away".
"Really?!", I reply.
I immediately agree on a 3 hour drive for some White Castle burgers. My cousin gets on his garmin or whatever he has in his car to look up the direction to the nearest White Castle. Well, 3 hours wasn't quite accurate. The nearest one was 307 miles. I realized that a 6 hour drive was NOT worth it for some White Castle burgers. Harold and Kumar we are not.

After the disappointment, my cousin takes me to the Norfolk waterfront for some tourist attractions. We walk around for about an hour, checking out some of the waterfront features. He then takes me to the local college, Old Dominion University. It's a smaller university, but all the features of a college are there - a book store, cute undergrads, bikers, neighborhoods filled with undergrads, some playing fields and did I mention undergrads? We stop over at my cousin's friends house in the area and chat for a bit. His friend recently had a baby and we got to meet him. Awwww, so cute! It seemed he took a liking to me, stared at me and got all excited. I wish girls had the same reaction to me! But you're just a baby. As it got dark, my cousin then headed home to my aunts for dinner.

My aunt is fattening me up. I get home and she thinks I didn't eat the breakfast she left for me this morning. I tell her I did, but she tells me there were leftovers. Of course there were left overs, she left me enough food for a family of four. As I was eating dinner, she tells me to not be shy about eating and that she cooks a lot and there are will be plenty of food - oh boy. Good thing I lost a bit of weight before coming here, because my aunt will certainly make sure I gain some weight back.

Virginia - Day 1

I am Joram and I had to be up at 3:00 am to be ready for Shuttle Express coming at 3:35. Fortunately, I did all my packing before I went to bed, so I was ready to go when Shuttle Express showed up a 5 minutes early. I have trouble staying awake on the way to the airport. Being so early in the morning, there was no traffic, so I make it to Sea-Tac airport quickly. I go immediately to my airline, but the kiosks were still close. *Sigh* I had to wait until 4:30 for people to show up to help me and the rest of the passengers check out luggage in. After checking in, I go to my gate to wait to board. I find a seat and start falling asleep again. With a wait of over an hour and a half, the plane finally starts boarding. As I make my way to the gate to check in, I notice my boarding pass has no seat number. My pass does say "Open Seating". Interesting - must find single cute chick to sit next to. I size up the crowd - old, fat, attached, scary looking, seat's taken - bah! I get stuck sitting to some panicking lady about having to check in her over sized carry on.
Well, I don't feel like conversing with her. I take a quick pic of myself before I fall asleep. I wake up every now and then from announcements and some snacks being served.

A few hours later, I land in Chicago. I go to my gate to wait for my transfer plane to load. Once again, its open seating. Once again I don't find some single girl to sit next to. Instead, I sit next to some guy and a grandmother. I quickly falls asleep after take off. I was so out this time around that I slept throught the flight attendant asking around what we'd like to drink. I did wake up when there were handing out snacks. Being up, the grandmother starts talking to me. Anyone that knows me, know that my brain doesn't function well immediately after waking up. The grandmother was saying a lot, but all I could do was nod in agreement. After a while, I realize that she's on her way to Virginia from Arkansas to visit his son and granddaughter. She continues telling me that her daughter in law doesn't like her and a lot of other stories. After a two hour flight, I have a rough landing at Virginia.

My cousin meets me, I find my bag at baggage claim and we are on our way. I get to my aunt's house and my cousin show me to a room which I'll be staying at for the next week. My aunt and uncle comes home and we have dinner. I thought I could watch my diet before the run, but screw it! I don't get Filipino food like these everyday. Apperantly, my aunt is cooking even more for tomorrow when my mom finally joins me on this trip. After dinner, my cousin and I walk around the neighborhood to talk about running and him planning his job prospects for after school. After the walk, my aunt and uncle talk to me about me about my job prospects. I couldn't lie, I didn't really have one. They start giving me several advice, which all were good. They even offered me a place in Virginia to stay if I want a job here for $0 rent (Broomie, I'll have my stuff shipped over!). Nah, it is a nice offer, but I don't know yet. I will think about their advices, but for now my focus will be getting ready for the run on Sunday.

Trying to get out

With the summer nearing an end, I feel like I've missed out on the summer. But after some thought, not really. This summer has been one of the most eventful in quite a long time. Here are just some of the things I can remember that I have done;

June 21st - Race for the Cure.
June 29th - Seafair 1/2 marathon with John
July 4th - Fireworks at Boom City with Jerry
July 12th - International District street fair with Melissa
July 19th - Bite of Seattle with Broomie
July 22nd - Went to Shelton, had the first high school reunion committee meeting with Regina and Maria
July 26th - Seafair torchlight 8k race. Got to run the parade route at downtown Seattle.
August 9-10 - Camping at Lake Chelan with Stefani and friends.
August 15-17 - Olympics! Watched a ridiculous amount of Olympics. Had the TV going plus the Internet broadcast.
August 16th - Covey Run 10k with John and friends.
August 23-24 - Hanging out with Susan and friends
Soon - Going to Virgina to visit family, run another 1/2 marathon and possibly see Washington D.C.
After VA - I might head down to Seaside, Oregon for a few nights.

Almost every weekend, I was some where doing something. I'm glad I didn't totally waste another summer.

Over the Last Few Weeks

Wow, I've sucked at updating.
Quick stuff:
Ran two races - Torchlight 8k & Covey Run 10k
Been training too hard, had to cut back a lot.
Getting ready to go to Virginia to do another half marathon.
Work is still annoying
The cat still has a hole in his neck
Went to Susan's over the weekend to meet her Aussie friend.
Drank way too much at Susan's house.
Bought a new laptop.
Watched a lot of the Olympics, but still not enough.
Coworkers are trying to find me a girl (jokingly, maybe, I don't know).
Girl coworkers are as nasty as boys - nuff said.
Umm, that's all I can remember for now.

I Joined a Gym

I am Joram and I joined a gym. There is a gym just down the road from my work, so the location is very convenient. I paid for a full year membership and with that, I also get a key to the gym, so I can workout even after hours. I don't really have plans for that, but I might do a morning workout sometime in the future. I got a quick tour of the gym today, it's not much, but it seems to have plenty of things I need for weight training.

I wrote down a little plan for my workout tomorrow, but I have no idea what I will be lifting. I haven't lifted free weights in such a long time, that I just don't know what my capabilities are on the weights. I think I will be spending the next few weeks just doing several lifts way below of my potential.

I plan to go lift weights at least twice a week. I am still uncertain how I will be able to schedule this around all my other plans - running and biking. I know I reduced my running to three times a week rather than four days. I was thinking that on my easy run day (Tuesday), I will also lift weights and on lift weights on Friday also. My plan kind of looks like this;

Sunday - long run
Monday - rest
Tuesday - easy run/weight training
Wednesday - bike
Thursday - tempo/speed run
Friday - bike/weight training
Saturday - rest

I think it looks good. I mix the weight training with some aerobics and I get two day off too! I'll see how this schedule works over the next few weeks. More muscles please.

2nd Quarter Music

Here are the albums I've listened to for the 2nd quarter of the year;

Jason Mraz - We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things
Taylor Swift - Taylor Swift
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Billie the Vision... - I was so unpopular... (Band name and album name is long!)
Mariah Carey - EMC2
Maroon 5 - Song About Jane
Usher - Here I Stand
Leona Lewis - Spirit
Madonna - Hard Candy
Spice Girls - Greatest Hits
N.E.R.D. - Seeing Sounds
The B-52s - Funplex

My top pick from this last batch are Jason Mraz and Billie the Vision.

Seafair 1/2 Marathon

Last weekend was the Seafair Half Marathon. I got the opportunity to be one of the first people to run across the 520 floating bridge! Even thought I have ran a half marathon before and I've been running since, this was a harder run for me. Maybe it was because I have ran a half marathon before, so I wasn't just trying to finish, but trying to finish at a faster time. Another thing that was constantly on my mind coming up to the event was the heat wave that came to Seattle. We were in the mid-50's then suddenly the temperatures shot up to the high 80s - the overnight low for last Saturday was 63!

Well, even with the heat and the extra pressure I put on myself, I did manage to finish the half marathon with a time of 02:13:43.1 (10:13 pace). A 20+ second pace improvement! That time surely surprised me, there were a few things that I wasted time on - spending too much time at the water stations and all the extra time I spent on the hills on the 2nd half of the race - I still finished strong. Anyway, enough reminiscing about the past event, my next big event is 5 months away.