Gino Guarnere's Blog

Sorry I’ve been MIA!

2008-08-22T21:00:00Z

So, what else? Well, in short:

I’m in the nucleus of the Chicago Marathon training and am up to the 18 mile long runs
I am, for the first time in years, trying a new running shoe. I purchased a pair of Asics Gel Cumulus 10s and will give them their first spin tomorrow. Maybe a replacement for my go-to Mizuno Wave Rider 10s and 11s, but maybe not! Only time will tell.
I am riding in the Lance Armstrong Livestrong Challenge this coming Sunday. 45 miles on my new Cannondale. I haven’t yet even ridden 20 miles in one shot. My furthest ride has been 17 miles. Uh oh.
This year, as a result of the marathon training, I have become an 8:40 average miler with a heart rate that hovers in the mid to high 150s, as opposed to last year, where such a pace would have put my heart well into the 170s...
As a result of my marathon training so far (I have yet to miss 1 mile of Hal Higdon’s Novice 2 training program), I have completely destroyed every PR I’ve ever set all the way up to the half-marathon thus far.
As a result of how well the marathon training is going at this point, I’ve realigned my goal time to be 4:10 instead of 4:20 and actually believe I will achieve this.
This year I am planning to smash my Philadelphia Distance Run PR from last year by over 8 minutes, putting me under the 2 hour mark.
For those that want to hear a little music, come check me out LIVE at Ron’s Original in Lionville, PA. Here’s the schedule.
I recently was one of the photographers hired to shoot photography at this year’s SheROX Women’s Triathlon.

Livestrong Challenge, Philadelphia

2008-06-20T10:39:00Z

I’ve signed up by paying the entrance fee, but I’m also asking for donations to help fight cancer. Read on and help out the foundation! All donations go directly to the foundation.

Through the dollars and awareness that we raise, we can inspire and empower individuals, and we can make life better for the more than 10 million Americans affected by cancer.

$10 provides information packets to 16 cancer survivors to offer support, inspiration and hope.
$50 provides 35 people cancer survivorship information, worksheets to organize their fight against cancer and support, inspiration and hope from other cancer survivors.
$155 provides a cancer survivor one-on-one direct support through the LIVESTRONG SurvivorCare program.
$250 provides LIVESTRONG Survivorship Notebooks to 27 cancer survivors.

Please support me as I make a difference in the cancer fight through my participation in the LIVESTRONG Challenge. Thank you!

Click Here to Donate

Second week of training, Chicago Marathon

2008-06-20T10:12:00Z

Just like last year, when I participated in the Philadelphia Marathon, I’m going to use Hal Higdon’s training plan to ready myself to run 26.2 in the Windy City. Last year, I tried to do Hal Higdon’s Intermediate Training Plan, but had a tough time adhering to the schedule all by myself. This year, not only have I picked up a training partner, but I’ve chosen a schedule that in fact is more attainable, and I believe I’ll be able to complete the weekly mileage much more happily, if training for a marathon could ever be such a thing.

The primary difference between the Novice and Intermediate programs is the amount of days you spend running. In the Novice plan, you run 4 days a week and cross train 1 while taking 2 off. In the Intermediate plan, you run 5 days a week, cross train 1 and take 1 off. In the end, it’s more realistic for me to do 5 solid days of activity than it is to do 6. I’m absolutely confident that I can hit my target of 4:20:00 by following the Novice schedule and actually hitting all the targets. Last year, I missed a lot of the weekly targets anyway, and in the end, wasn’t keeping to the schedule.

Oh, and 2 other things...

So in addition to having a training partner, this year I’m adding two other variables to my training: I’m going to lose 10 pounds before October 12, 2008, and I’ve purchased a road bike and will be using it for the cross training. Last year, “cross training” meant “take the day off and drink beer.” This year, I’m going to be out riding hard for 20 + miles at a strong cadence. I truly believe that the only way to up the ante from my 2007 racing season, where I PR’d in every major race I entered over 2006, I’m going to have to lose the weight. I’m thinking of a way to post a “weight meter” on my website so we can all keep track of my progress. More on that as I figure it out.

So there it is, folks. I’ll be posting more on my new swan dive into the world of Road Cycling under a separate series of posts. There’s just too much to talk about on that one, and I’m just too new at it to know what I want to say (I bought the bike 2 weeks ago).

Stay Tuned! And see you out on the roads!

Upper Dublin Senior Olympic Photos Online!

2008-05-20T13:12:00Z

Naturally, my Father-in-Law was a participant in this event, which was the primary reason I was there. This was the first event he’s run where he was actually competing solely against other seniors, and he medaled 4 out of 4 events in his age group, which is a huge achievement. Considering he didn’t run the Broad Street Run this year, this was a great way to make up for it.

I was able to shoot over 800 pictures at this event. I’ve taken the best of the best and made them available in both color and black and white versions.

Visit my SmugMug gallery to view the photos!

Random SmugMug Photos

2008-05-15T16:59:00Z

Refresh the page to see it in action

Random Albums

This causes some layout problems since not all photos are the same aspect ratio, but here goes:

If anyone wants to utilize the last technique, which places your album thumbnails side by side using validated markup with css, here it is:

The CSS



/* @group Smug Mug */

#smugmug {
	padding: 0;
	margin: 0;
	display: block;
	max-width: 450px;
	min-height: 95px;
        clear:both;
	
}

#smugmug img {
	border-style: none;
}

.photo {
	
	padding: 5px;
	margin: 0 4px 5px 0;
	display: block;
	border: 1px solid #000;
	float: left;
	align: center;
}

/* @end */

The Markup/HTML

Here is the markup in a text file. Basically, just use this markup in conjunction with the CSS above and you'll get the layout I've achieved. Naturally, change the html code to reflect your own Smug Mug galleries, and feel free to tweak the CSS! Let me know if you need any help!

Broad Street Run 2008: A Comedy of New Errors

2008-05-07T18:54:00Z

For starters, I picked up my friend Frank at 6:45 AM in Gladwyne, which forced us to go into the city on I-76. There was race traffic everywhere, and somehow, my plan to meet a bunch of friends on Franklin field at 7:30 AM was rapidly disintegrating. In desperate need of a porta potty, I coaxed a parking lot “guard” to let me into a closed parking lot to use one of the many vacant porta potties situated at the far corner of the empty lot (this would prove to be a lifesaver later in the morning)...After using the porta potty, I pulled into Lincoln Financial Field to park the car and walk to the subway for the overly-crowded, sardine-can-esque ride up Broad Street to the starting line.

Let’s Ride the Subway

Getting on the Subway for the Broad Street Run is a singularly unique experience. While the subway is free on this particular morning, there are also non-runners who need to get where they’re going as well. All told, the subway literally has as many people riding it as can fit. You are smashed up against others for the entire duration of the 20 minute trek, and I can’t possibly imagine that this approach isn’t in some violation of the maximum allowable capacity...This is one of those moments where you realize you’re probably cheating death, and you (or at least I) talk incessantly to take my mind of the fact that there’s no way we should all be on the subway at the same time…

8:30 Start, and we’re 2 stops away

For the first time in my short-and-uneventful racing career, it occurred to me at 8:25 AM that we were not going to be off the train for the 8:30 start. I seemed to be the only one concerned about this, but my theory is that anyone on that particular train was probably not really worried about starting on time (the college girls in front of me were asking me when they were going to get their racing chip. I explained that it came with their race packet. They giggled and started fishing around for it at 8:27 AM).

At about 8:35 AM, the subway slowed to a stop and the doors opened. I had no idea what to expect when I reached the surface, but I knew that I had already missed the following opportunities:

Meeting my friends on the field. This year I was meeting up with more people than ever before.
Hearing the Star Spangled Banner, which for me is a defining moment and a reminder of why I love to race
Getting a chance to focus my energy on what I needed to do for the next 10 miles
Lining up in the appropriate corral, which is a big factor in allowing me to keep my race pace
Allowing my Garmin 305 GPS to find a satellite so I could track my splits. The subway isn’t a great place to grab a satellite signal.

The race began Underground

As the doors opened, it was a little scary, as everyone on the train felt a certain urgency to get off (including me). I literally started running underground, up the steps, and along the corridor street that leads to the start line. People were kind of shuffling along, but there was somehow a bunch of people standing on the sidelines, clearly unconcerned with the fact that the race was already underway...My heart rate was up to 145 before I even reached the racing area, and I was in such disarray that I had no idea where I was in relation to those in front of me.

Frank’s last words...

My friend Frank followed me to “the surface” and stated that he had to make a “quick stop, don’t lose me.” I said ok, turned around, and he was gone. I looked 360 degrees, looked into the street, looked around once again, and just ran out into the street to begin my haphazard event. I was sorry not to run with Frank, but, as it turned out, he wouldn’t be behind me for very long, a theme that seemed to play out for me over the next 10 miles with a number of other runners as well.

On the road with the Broad Street Gang

At mile 4, Frank caught up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. I was happy to rejoin my friend, and was glad that we were still on pace. As we rounded City Hall, I could see that Frank wasn’t satisfied with the pace I was keeping, and I told him we were about a minute behind schedule. I felt, however, that I was where I wanted to be (a decision I would regret at the end). I told Frank to put the hammer down and I’d see him at the finish. He did, and I wouldn’t see him again until I logged at least another 4 miles or so of pavement.

In the end, I came in about 4 minutes slower than last year. My FIL, who came down to support us, spoke to another friend of mine who he happened upon while leaving Philadelphia. He mentioned my time to the friend...This particular friend, who is always brutally honest, looked at my FIL and said, “...that’s a HORRIBLE time for him” in reference to my performance.

I believe he was right, and I plan on redeeming myself at another 10 miler as soon as I can find a local one. I’m going to get my Star Spangled Banner back, dammit, and my PR is going down in 2008.

Valley Forge 5 Miler: Holy Hills!

2008-04-22T11:21:00Z

I clocked a 44:42 on the chip, and a 43:55 on my Garmin GPS. I’m never quite sure how there’s always such disparity between the two, but it seems my Garmin always makes me faster than the chip! Putting me under a 9 minute mile for 5 miles was a great tune-up for Broad Street, and my Broad Street time from last year was 1:29:37. Interestingly, my pace for both Valley Forge 2008 and and Broad Street 2007 according to the clock time was 9:07 pace per mile. With the hills removed, I’m confident that I might actually beat my Broad Street PR.

The Valley Forge race was also special because I ran it with my good friend Frank. This was his first race, and he actually beat me by a minute! I saw him pulling away a little at mile 3 and was pumped to see him doing so well his first time out. On the heels of that, we’ll both stride down Broad Street in 2 weeks with a few other folks that I’ve been running with for years. Should be an exciting time for all!

Stay tuned for my results from Broad Street in a couple of weeks!

Wild Bill Guarnere.com: 6 Years online!

2008-03-28T17:26:00Z

Well, that honor goes to my father, Gene, Bill’s son. He thought it would be a good idea to give the website to my grandfather as a Christmas present. It was kind of funny, actually, that at some level my father and I both thought my grandfather would be excited by having his own website. Well, he wasn’t. In fact, he looked at me and my father, shook his head and said “we’re a bunch of internet-NUTS.” Nonetheless, we launched the site on March 29th, 2002 and it has become one of the largest internet repositories in the world pertaining to information on WW2. The site, to date has 183643 unique posts by over 4200 members from all over the world. There are usually several hundred users on the site at any given moment, and we have over the years had visits from the actors, producers and historians who were part of the original HBO mini series. The site has also become an online community of friends who call each other on birthdays from different countries, send each other Christmas cards, and have provided other members with places to stay when members are traveling.

Wild Bill Guarnere has hosted 3 Community Dinners, all in Philadelphia, and have brought together several members to South Philly from as close as Pennsylvania and as far away as Australia. My grandfather has done a few “live” chats with guests over the years, which gave the opportunity for his fans to ask him questions via the internet and get his responses. Wild Bill’s website has made donations to disaster recovery efforts in the Tsunami that hit Sri Lanka in 2004 and has made many charitable donations of Wild Bill Guarnere hand signed merchandise and memorabilia.

Wild Bill Guarnere.com has mostly, however, raised awareness about the sacrifices made by our allied forces and has educated the young and old alike. If you’re a history buff, educator, enthusiast, military personnel or just interested in one of the most significant periods in world history, then Wild Bill Guarnere has probably been a stopover in your internet travels.

Wild Bill Guarnere is 84 years old as of this writing and still is active as a guest speaker for many schools and corporations around the world. He’s been an inspiration to his family and to the world alike. I’m proud to celebrate 6 years online!

Chicago Marathon: I’m IN

2008-03-09T23:12:00Z

After having seen Spirit of the Marathon with my father-in-law, I decided the Chicago Marathon was next on my list after having gotten my butt kicked at the Philadelphia Marathon in November, 2007. I knew it was important not to press my wife too much in allowing me to go to Chicago while we were still waiting for our daughter to arrive, but now that she’s here, today was the day to do the pressing! My secret weapon was to take my wife out for a full sushi lunch, a food she’s been craving the entire 9 months of her pregnancy, and we ordered piles of the fleshy delicacy today. While the food was coming out, I said, “...So, hey, ya know I really want to run the Chicago Marathon if that’s ok with you...” As she was pouring the soy sauce in her little dish, she said, “Ok, that sounds great...go ahead.” I didn’t hesitate.

Immediately after returning home to the house, I hit the Chicago Marathon website and dutifully signed up for another 26.2 in the Windy city. I’m planning on taking Kathi as well for moral support, and of course my FIL loves an adventure, so I’m guessing he’ll be along for the ride.

That shapes up my 2008 race schedule quite nicely: The Broad Street Run, The Philadelphia Distance Run, The Chicago Marathon.

I’ll keep copious notes on my training this year, as I have a date with a 4:30 marathon time. Wish me luck!

It’s a girl and what a ride…

2008-03-02T21:00:00Z

Tuesday Evening

Kathi and I went to Paoli hospital on Tuesday evening for an 8:00 PM appointment. She was about 1/2 cm dilated and that’s not enough to deliver a baby. As she was almost a week overdue, the doctors decided that we were going to make this baby come out whether she was ready or not. I was introduced to a medicine called “Cervidil,” and apparently this is the way to get a not-ready-for-prime-time mother to dilate so she can be brought into a stage of active labor. Our doctor did some voodoo that I mostly couldn’t watch and walked away saying “we were all set.” Then, I unfolded the amazingly uncomfortable hospital chair into its makeshift bed form and cracked open a bottle of Yellow Tail Chardonnay, which would serve as my sleep aid, while my wife was utilizing more conventional forms of sleep aids per her doctor’s orders (Ambien was the order of the evening). I took tons of snapshots of my wife and the general condition of the room, and we were, for the most part, ready to tuck in for the night without much fanfare. I’m not sure what worked faster in the end, the Ambien or the Chardonnay, but we both ended up asleep, which was the plan in each of our respective-yet-highly-different-cases.

Wednesday Morning

Through the night we had a lot of visits from nurses checking vitals, etc, and I slept horribly, but I woke up anxious to see how the Cervidil worked. It took a while for a Dr. Sheila Kambin to bounce through the door, but when she did, we were happy to hear that Kath was 3 centimeters, and the prediction was we should be able to have active labor by 2:00 on Wednesday afternoon with the help of a wonder drug called Pitocin. I was familiar with this drug from our last 2 babies, and recalled that it threw my wife into labor fairly quickly. The nurse came in and said, “Ok, looks like you’re 3 centimeters. No problem. We’ll just relax, crank up the ‘pit’ and you’ll be ready to give birth.” That was at about 9:30 AM. My father-in-law showed up with his wife shortly after and I gave the two of them a run down of the events thus far. My FIL brought me some “Zeps” (a Norristown hoagie) from a great Italian deli and by the time we went to eat them, Kathi was 6 centimeters along. The Pitocin was working as advertised. We all hung out and just talked about the great event that was about to take place…

Fast Forward about 30 minutes

Around 11:30, my FIL and I went to a room outside the Maternity Ward to eat our “zeps.” About 5 minutes later, we got a call on the cell phone..."Kathi is ready to deliver. Get back here right now!” I charged back through the labyrinth of hallways and pushed open the door. Kathi had gone from 6 cm to 10 cm in less than an hour, and she looked at me and it was clear that now was the time. Dr. Kambin came in and said we were ready, and that’s when Kathi asked her father and stepmother if they wanted to remain in the room for the birth. While she was asking, the nurses were breaking down the bed for a delivery, lights were coming out of hidden areas in the ceiling, and I’ll never forget the look on my FIL’s face as the room went from what looked like a hotel room to a birthing room in less than 60 seconds…

Anything in the name of Education...

Our nurse had been shadowed by a Villanova University nursing student all morning, and this would be the first birth the student nurse got to witness. Somehow, a bunch of other student nurses were in the nurse’s station with little to do, and they, too, got wind of what was happening in Room 247. As we were about to start pushing, they all crashed through the door (about 7 of them) and asked if they could watch. The scene was quite funny, as I was holding my wife’s left leg and the nurse was holding her right with the doctor in a catcher’s stance tacked onto the end. By this time, we already had at least 5 people in the room as part of the delivery team, so my wife graciously agreed to let the students see their first birth and we went from 5 people to around 12 people in the blink of an eye. It was cool to watch the students, all females in their 20’s, witness a birth. You could tell that they were marveling not only at the site of birth from a clinical perspective, but they were watching it as females who would no-doubt go through something similar in the not-too-distant future.

12 Pushes and you’re done.

Kathi rode the wave of 3 contractions, pushed about 4 times at 100% for each contraction, and our daughter came into the world on approximately the 12th push. Dr. Kambin knew exactly when to tell Kathi to push and when to hold back, and when our daughter’s head appeared, Dr. Kambin grabbed it with both hands and started to gently help our baby through. I’m always amazed at how something that big fits through something that small, but when her shoulders cleared the area, she came through and was placed right on top of Kathi. I’m 3 for 3 on the cord-cutting, although for the record I asked my FIL to do the honors. He passed…

Our daughter weighed in at 8 lbs, 7 oz, and was 21 inches long. She came at 11:41 AM, several hours before we anticipated.

And then this.

A few hours later, I could see that Kathi’s nurse wasn’t liking the amount of bleeding that was going on, and I could see some concern in her face. When the doctor was called and came through the door, I knew something was not exactly as it should be. Kathi had delivered so quickly that her uterus was apparently not “bouncing back” to it’s normal state, and the doctor began to do everything she could to find the source of the bleeding right there in the room. I was sitting in a chair feeding my daughter, and Kathi was mostly writhing in pain from what was basically a highly invasive exam to figure out where the bleeding was coming from. After the Dr. did some cleaning out of the area, she said she’d be back in to check on Kathi’s progress. 20 minutes later, Kath was being unhooked and the bed was being rolled to the OR.

A short stopover, but an important one

Kathi had a tear in her cervix from the rapid delivery. Dr. Kambin needed to get Kathi into a anesthetic situation so she could take a proper look. Since Kathi had eaten just after birth, they had to opt for another local spine anesthetic instead of putting her under. I was so upset that she had to go through a minor surgery completely awake. I sat in the room alone, as I asked the nurses to take my daughter back into the nursery in case I was needed. The 1 hour procedure seemed to take days, but I called my FIL on the phone and told him what was happening, as well as Kathi’s mom. My FIL decided he was coming back to the hospital, and I told him to bring a few bottles of wine! He showed up just as Kathi was coming back to the room, and she was surprisingly alert given everything that just happened. One of the highlights of the entire stay was Kathi, her father, and myself chatting until around midnight, while Paul and I tugged on our wine to keep the edge off. I was really scared that night, and Dr. Kambin knew exactly what to do and when to do it. Kathi’s nurse as well was the one who initially noticed the anomaly, and I’m so thankful we had this particular set of folks on call that evening. Things could have really gone differently depending on who was there. I really believe that. From then on, the concern was that Kath lost a lot of blood, and we were fearful that she might need a transfusion. That step never came, and we were thankful for that.

A day of monitoring and rest

Kathi had a good day on Thursday, but they wanted to keep her until Friday to monitor blood counts. Since they had stopped the bleeding, it was anticipated that the blood counts should stabilize, but they wanted to be sure. Kath was weak as expected, but she had our baby for large parts of the day and was doing very well. She seemed happy and the doctor was confident we were going home on Friday…

Friday

I sent Kath a text message on Friday morning, and didn’t hear right back. Then I sent another asking if she was ok and didn’t hear right back. Now, a nervous wreck, I called her cell and she answered. “I have an infection from the surgery,” she said. I was thinking, “Man, I just want her to have a win, here.” They gave her an IV drip of antibiotics and some painkillers, and the doctor said he wanted to monitor the effect of the antibiotic on her condition, which resembled flu-like symptoms. It was expected that they might keep her yet-another day, but by mid-afternoon, Kathi was completely transformed, and it was clear that the antibiotic was doing what it was supposed to do. Her blood counts were stable and although she was weak, the doctor said he could administer the antibiotic by prescription drug instead of keeping her in the hospital any longer. By 2:00 on Friday, we were packing up to go home.

On the mend

Kathi is feeling pretty good, and it’s clear that she’s getting her strength back. Our daughter, by the way, was perfect from the start, so forgive me if she hasn’t been the focus of this post. I’m thankful, however, to Dr. Kambin and Maurina for their kindness, skill, and compassion. They acted in the right way at the right time, and, as a result, we’re back home with our daughter safe and sound.

Welcome to the world, Aviana!

Spirit of the Marathon? You Bet.

2008-02-24T16:59:00Z

The second thing I realized while watching is that I believe I can run a way better marathon than I did in Philadephia on November 18th, 2007. For those who follow my blog, you’ll already know that I got my butt kicked through a series of miscalculations, inexperience with the distance, and horrible weather. Nonetheless, I felt a kinship while watching this movie with “regular runners,” who are featured as 3 of the 5 subjects they chose to spotlight. And in spite of the fact that I’m not one of them, you can still feel a kinship with the Elite athletes and that’s one of the beauties of running. Deena Kastor and Daniel Njenga are both astonishing athletes and human beings, and it was great to see them both featured in the film.

The third thing I learned is that Chicago looks like a great city to run in. The movie is basically the story of 5 runners, all of differing abilities training to run 26.2 miles at the Chicago Marathon, 2005. The movie does a great job of showing off the windy city, and as marathons go, Chicago is one of the flattest, fastest 26.2 mile courses in the world.

I decided as a result of all this momentum that I’ll be signing up for the Chicago Marathon this year, which takes place on 12. October, 2008. I have also decided on the following:

To run 1 marathon per year until I’m dead.
To run at least 1 race per year that takes place somewhere I’ve never been before.

The Chicago Marathon meets both requirements for 2008!

Spirit of the Marathon Movie Trailer

I’m officially putting photos on Smug Mug

2008-02-24T15:50:00Z

In fact, there are SO many people on Flickr that getting noticed at all takes a heck of a lot of work. In the end, with over 1000 photos there, I have yet to receive any real feedback from anyone (except my mom, go figure). Of course, I’ve only recently started to avidly post there, and I know all that will change over time. And, in fairness to Flickr users, I generally don’t comment on people’s photos either, so it’s probably not fair to expect the world when I’ve hardly given it myself…

Anyway, I’ve been aware of Smug Mug for many years, as a good friend of mine has been using it exclusively and has, to date, well over 300,000 photos up there (they say they have no storage limit, and apparently they mean it). As well, I found a heck of a lot of pro photographers over there, a lot of useful photography tips and tutorials, as well as some very robust client and organizational tools. While this is not a head-to-head comparison of the 2 services (I may do that another time), it is clear that Smug Mug promotes themselves as a family business with personal service and more of a boutique approach to digital photography storage. As well, there were a few other cool things that really pushed me over the edge to sign up as a pro user:

Smug Mug makes multiple, redundant copies of your photos for maximum security in case of data loss
There’s this insane plugin called Smugglr, which literally allowed me to move my entire Flickr album (1000+ photos) with virtually no effort. I set it up, walked away, and when I came back my entire Smug Mug Gallery was totally loaded with my Flickr photos, tags, descriptions, and even my Flickr galleries. It was just ridiculously easy to migrate the content.
I got 50% off my first year as a Flickr defector (I signed up for a Pro account)
Smug Mug offers pretty robust image management categories, and an especially useful set of tools for hiding and showing galleries. This for me will make Smug Mug the place to house all my client-related photos.
Smug Mug offers some pretty nice themes, and the ability to create your own. I’ll eventually make my Smug Mug page look more like it’s integrated into the Pixeldust Films website.
Smug Mug is a family-run shop, and that’s largely in alignment with where Pixeldust Films is headed. More on that later, as I’ll have some cool announcements on this in a few weeks!

Anyway, I guess the list goes on, and maybe this is the beginning of a head-to-head shootout, but in the meantime, check out my new Smug Mug gallery of photos!

Wild Bill Guarnere on You Tube

2008-02-20T01:33:00Z

The motion graphics were created entirely in After Effects, and, I’m proud to say, the music is being used by permission of the late Michael Kamen, who composed the soundtrack to Band of Brothers. I’m proud of this piece, and I’m placing it here directly from You Tube. To see the original, head on over to my portfolio page and check it out in the Multimedia Player under “Motion Graphics.” It looks better on the Pixeldust Films site, as it’s less compressed. You Tube compresses everything yet-again to help them with their obvious bandwidth issues…

My Villanova “short” on You Tube

2008-02-17T18:31:00Z

Signed up for Broad Street, 2008

2008-02-16T13:32:01Z

I posted a blog entry on my results from last year’s race. I really ran the best race of my short career last year on Broad Street. I’m actually wondering if I’ll be able to do anything close to that this year. I think the conditions were superlative: the wind was at the runner’s back, the weather was perfect...just so many things went right on that day. I should know, as I am no stranger to what can happen when things don’t go right. If you also take into consideration that I was running Broad Street , 2007 one week after setting a new personal record in Nashville Country Music Half Marathon, it was even more of an anomalous performance.

I feel, however, that I’m the best shape of my life, and as the weather breaks, I’ll be starting to work on my Tempo runs in preparation to break my 2007 record. If I break it by 10 seconds, I’m happy.