I was flipping through radio stations this morning and happened upon a station talking about a "new" artist called KT Tunstall. She has a song called Black Horse And The Cherry Tree that's been playing on KFOG here for what seems like ages, and she just recently hit the national scene. Well anyway, there's one line they were talking about:

when the big black horse that looked this way,
said hey lady, will you marry me?

The announcer and a caller were discussing this lyric commenting on oddity of the line. Then after much discussion the DJ finally says, "maybe it's metaphoric." A bit thick of the DJ and the caller to take this line literally, but it takes them a good 5-10 minutes to figure that this lyric may not be all that literal?! No one said you had to be smart to be on the radio.

A bit disappointed in England. They had a good first half showing against Sweden but lost the plan in the second half. Luckily they managed to scrape by with a draw and come out on top of the group. They really need to pull together for Ecuador though or we could see England on the coattails of the unlucky Michael Owen who tore his cruciate ligament early in yesterday's game. He'll unfortunately be out for 5 months, which leaves England with only 3 strikers, one of whom is barely match fit, another who hasn't even featured for his club team, and the last who doesn't really fit the bill of an out and out forward. Yeah, England is going to win the World Cup.

I went to a local grocery store over the weekend that almost exclusively sells British food. Everything from Spotted Dick to Steak & Kidney Pie. Nummy! I picked up the savory nectar of the gods,



I remember hating this as a kid, but for some reason I knew I would like it almost two decades later. I sort of gorged myself on buttered toast with marmite over the weekend. I also bought some malteasers and a steak & kidney pie, although I much prefer steak & kidney pudding. I'm more than halfway through my little jar of marmite, so I might have to go back to the store to get some more.

France was shafted yesterday. They should have been credited for a goal that clearly went over the line, but none of the linesmen saw it. How blind can they be? FIFA is saying that they won't introduce a review process unless it's 100% reliable. Being an engineer, I can safely say there's nothing that's 100% reliable, so in essence they're never going to introduce a review process since they're trying to achieve the unattainable.

My legs look too damn skinny. I used to have soccer legs, but now I have skinny runner legs. I miss my larger legs, now I look I'm on twigs. I don't want to be one of those typical skinny runner guys. I was at the gym yesterday doing some upper body work, which I haven't done in ages. Looking at my legs, I just noticed how thin they look. It just doesn't look right!

I'm really wired on caffeine right now.

England need to pull it together for the world cup. They've had two mediocre performances so far against two mediocre teams. Hopefully they'll have better performances against the better teams.

Ing-guh-lund! Ing-guh-lund! Ing-guh-lund!

Well it was a humid one last Sunday at first I didn't think it was going to affect me much. However as the race progressed I felt myself slowly being drained of energy, even moreso than usual. When I stepped into corral 1 I saw one pace group but soonafter another pace leader stepped in saying that he was going to run the race at a variable pace according to the terrain of the course whereas the other guy was just going to run a straight 7:15 pace throughout the entire race. For the first 14-15 miles I was just a little bit behind the pace group but I felt myself petering out quite early due to the humidity and heat. I can run in heat but not so much in humidity, so I slowly began to slow down. I stopped for a bit at around mile 21 because I was overheated. Around when I started to lose the pace group I started reassessing my goals and I just wanted to PR, but that went out the window when I felt these weird chest pains a little after mile 22. I had no idea what was going on so I reluctantly stopped in a medical tent. After a few minutes the doctor said I was having muscle cramps in my chest. He then proceded to poke my chest in all the places it hurt. Lovely. I was stuck in the medical tent for about 10 minutes. I was laid out for a bit, then I stood up and a volunteer gave me a chest massage. Not long after the doctor gave me the go ahead to start running again. He said start off slow and work my way into it. At this point I just wanted to finish the race, so as soon as I was out of sight of the medical tent I took off.

It's really hard to start running again after you've barely moved for 10 minutes. My leg muscles had started to seize up, so I was sort of run-hobbling. I did manage however to run all the last few miles despite the cramping and pain and finish in a little under 3:36. Strangely I wasn't really disappointed in my performance because I felt great after the race. After Cal in December I was a wreck, after RNR I felt like I could go a few more. So I made the rounds in the finishing area and wound up at the TNT tent. I was there for about a half-hour or so stretching and socializing when I went back out to run my girlfriend into the finish. I made it, very slowly, to where the last band was playing waited and cheered. About an hour later my girlfriend showed up with her mentor and I joined them to the last quarter mile to the finish. A little bit after starting up again my entire chest seized up. I don't think I've ever felt a pain quite like that before, but I kept on running trying to keep up with my girlfriend who was speeding up with the finish near. After I ran her in, we again made our way back to the TNT tent where we all relaxed out in the sun.

I felt oddly happy about this run even though I didn't PR or qualify for anything. I'm in really good shape, so I might try and give San Francisco a try. Hills I can handle just not the humidity.

So I didn't qualify for Boston, nor did I PR. Too humid! However, I felt really great after the race and looked like a badass during the first part. I even did a little bit extra to run in my gf. Awww yeah.



So now I'm thinking, maybe I want to run the full at San Francisco.