danielbailey

Re-Engineering Your Life

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:01:22 GMT

Re-Engineering Your Life
Major changes in one’s life are great chances to “re-engineer” yourself and improve the way you live your life. In the past, I’ve tended to be a bit of a slob, so I decided that I’m going to work on putting things away and keeping a room clean and organized. It’s not that I don’t know how to do those things, but I just don’t do them until I get tired of living like a slob. I’ve actually been doing very well at it. I did go grocery shopping and I didn’t finish putting everything away, but I did finish it all away this morning just before going to work. I also put everything away that the Army issued to me, so I have two closets in my bedroom, one wall is Army stuff, and one wall is my stuff

First Week In Germany
I just completed my first full week in Germany. Nothing all that exciting has happened yet, as I’ve been doing more in-processing. I’m almost done with the Death by PowerPoint and have only one more day after today.

went to the housing office hoping to get permission to live off-post closer to where I'll be working (it's a bit of a drive, and in the winter pretty dangerous sometimes), and was told that I have to move to a converted family housing unit that's a 2-bedroom unit and I'l have to share it with another rank-equivalent soldier. It's still at the same base so I'll have the same drive. *sigh* So I'll just have a private bedroom and half to share the kitchen - I guess I'll have to learn to not leave dirty dishes in the sink :-)

Driver’s License
I passed my US Army Europe Driver’s license test, so I soon should be driving which will be nice. I’ve had a Captain in our unit driving me around, but I’d certainly prefer driving myself.

Work
I met the people in my section and they seem like a good group of people. I’ll have at least 75 people working for me in my division. It definitely helps that I can speak German. I think that they appreciate people trying to learn the language.

I worked this past helping with doing inventory. I got the opportunity to count lots of drugs and other medical supplies. It was a good learning experience and it gave me a good appreciation for the wide variety of things that we stock. I was amazed at the number of shapes and sizes of packages that products come in. It was also surprising to see a few supplies poorly packaged. Several items were shipped in plastic bags, but the bags weren’t sealed, so as the product was moved around or shipped, it tended to slide out of the package. Of course it wasn’t a sterile item, but still it seems that the manufacturer could do a better of packaging so it wouldn’t get dirty. Warehouses are pretty dirty, partially because of dust from tires from the “stock selector devices” (you call them forklifts).

After the inventory, a bunch of people met at a local autumn festival which was mostly about pumpkins. Well pumpkins, and German food, beer, and wine. And lots of vendors selling junk that you don’t need - See, even Europe, they sell junk you don’t need.

23 Mile Run...
I don’t have the charger for my Garmin 310 XT (somehow it got misplaced during the moving process). I had to order a replacement, and I had to have it shipped first to someone in the US and then to me over here, as they wouldn’t send it to an APO address. Grrrr.... anyway, I figured I’d run for 1 3/4 hours or so and then head for home, but I ended up further away than I expected, so I had a much longer run home. I was pretty sore when I got done, but I felt fine yesterday. I did get my Garmin charger and cord last night (it only took the weekend from the States) so tonight I’l run 5 or 6 miles and you’ll be able to see the area and route where I’m living.

I did my long run on Sunday, and I ran a bit further than I had planned. Well, it actually wasn’t a run the whole way, but... I planned to run 14 miles, but I ended up running and walking 23 miles!. I started in the Ramstein area, and ran west through several small towns. I also had a great time running for about 3 1/2 uninterrupted miles through the forest. It was really sunny out, so I was in the shade a lot of the run. I also ran for a while on a nice bicycle path. I’ll have to run the rest of it sometime. There are so many great places to run here and you don’t have to worry about getting run over by traffic.

Well, that’s it for right now so Bis Später! Feel free to leave comments here or on Facebook

Run

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:19:40 GMT

Well today was my first full day in the Vaterland, so I figure I’d do a short blog post on things.

Apartment
I’m in a small apartment that is about half the size of my previous place. There is a kitchen that is about 5 feet long. It does have a pretty cool smaller refrigerator/freezer unit that is hidden in the cabinets. It’s right next to the forest and is very quiet. I’m not used to such quiet. It’s probably more quiet than the house in Colorado.

One big problem - I may not be able to get an iPhone! Now that definitely makes this a hardship assignment. They don’t seem to allow people to sign up for less than two years. I’m going to check around and pursue some other possibilities though. I can use the iPhone like an iTouch, but that really is rough to not be able to reach out to my favorite Internet friend, Mr. Google.

7 Mile Run
I went for a 7 mile run on some pretty hilly terrain. I first ran around the hospital grounds, and then went outside in the forest down the hill, and then back up another way to the top.

There was an observation tower out in the woods, so I climbed the 84 steps to the top, and here are some Google Earth pictures of the tower and the view.

http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/13770451.jpg

http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/20174664.jpg

Here’s a panoramic view from the tower (it’s a pretty big picture, so it’ll load a bit slow)

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/22806269.jpg

Finding Dinner
I then walked about 4+ miles around the town of Landstuhl and ate some dinner. It was the only place I could find that took credit cards, since I haven’t yet gone to a bank to buy some Euros. The food was a bit salty, so I’ll have to watch how much of that sort of thing I eat.

Anyway, that’s about it for now

Another Road Trip! 17 Mile Drive + more

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:21:02 GMT

OK, this is pathetic - I haven’t blogged since the last time I was in Monterey, and that was in January... *hangs head in shame*

Today I ran 20 miles. I started at the gate to the 17 mile drive in Pebble Beach, and ran the entire route and then tacked an extra 3 miles on to that. It was very pretty too, but really windy.

17 Mile Drive + 3 miles extra

Final Blog Posting for 2008

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 02:05:45 GMT

Wow! the month has flown by - I figured I’d better do a quick blog post before the month changes again.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of triathlon training this past month. I got myself a Garmin 705 Edge GPS unit for Christmas, specifically designed for cycling, but it works well with running too. I got it at a great price at a local store. At the beginning of November, they were having a 20% off sale on gift cards, and then on Black Friday, they had another 20% off sale. I was the first one there and I picked up the only 705 they had in the store, so I got a $500 unit for about $320 :-). I also picked up a few accessories for my bike like aero bars, but I haven’t installed them. Today I also picked up some clipless bike pedals and shoes because I still had some cash on my gift card, and they were having another 20% off sale, so I picked up the top-of-the-line Shimano pedals.

Let’s see..

I’m going on a big trip beginning this Friday. I’ll be flying from DC to Denver, spending a few days at the house, flying to Orange County, spending a few days with my brother, going to San Diego to visit some friends, fly the next morning to San Francisco, attend the last 2 days of MacWorld, spend the next week at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, then fly to Seattle to visit my dad, and then finally fly home, a day before the Presidential Inauguration madness that will be sweeping the DC area.

Tonight Marti and I registered to run in the Oklahoma City half and full marathon respectively. The race is at the end of April, so we have plenty of time to prepare We’d been planning to register for several weeks, so we finally did it, the day before the price goes up.

I probably have a lot more to write, but I’ll just try to be a bit more disciplined at blogging.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Diet and/or Exercise

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:49:58 GMT

Would I prefer to eat twice as much and exercise or would I prefer to not exercise, eat half as much, and still be flabby?

- Sally Edwards - The Complete Book of Triathlons

Frost On the Punkin'

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:02:36 GMT

Well it’s getting cold here. It seems just a month or so ago I was out training for the Marine Corps Marathon and it was really hot. Today it was 28 degrees. I decided I had better get my butt out and do some running, so I did a short 3.5 mile run; it took about 32 minutes. It seemed like a slow pace, but I know that was pretty fast for a marathon pace... I’ll have to work on that one.

The "cannot's", the "should not's", and the "what if's"

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:30:48 GMT

“Many people in our society would rather be somewhere else in their lives. They remain in the ”cannot’s“ and the ”should not’s“ and the ”what if’s“ of everyday life, until one day they wake up and realize that they’ve lived in that ”cannot“ world for 40 years.

These same people dream of being ”doers“. They fantasize about actualizing their goals and dreams. They look to and live vicariously through role models to actualize what they haven’t been able to make happen for themselves.

Often those role models are athetes. That’s because athletes and sports represent the dream world we all seek; goal reaching, money, fame, fantasy, extreme experiences, adrenaline highs, being in the great outdoors. These ”should not“ people choose to remain in the stands rather than play on the field in the stadium of life.

- Terri Schneider (completed 22 Ironman Triathlons)

...wow...!

Marine Corps Marathon

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:35:39 GMT

Well, yesterday I completed the 33rd Annual Marine Corps Marathon. it was a great start, really exciting with the thousands of people there waiting. I was running very well, but probably too fast at the beginning. I had some major cramping in my shins and calves around mile 15, so I basically walked the last 11.2 miles. I had a finish time of 6:09:56, so that’s almost an hour slower than my last marathon. :-(

I went back and looked at my training, and I realize that I probably hadn’t worked out as much as I thought, and I only had one over 20 mile run (stupid iPod & Nike+ doesn’t lie; I can see exactly when I exercised :-). I think the combination of running too fast and not enough long build-up were factors in my poor showing. The weather was absolutely great, low around 48 or so when we started with a high of 60. Nice and sunny too.

After I crossed the finish line, I collected my medal (really heavy too!) and then it took a while to get out of there - we waited for a while in a line to take a shuttle bus back to Crystal City just a couple of blocks from the apartment, rather than riding the Metro, which also had a line. I was really sore, and it was hard to walk. I actually sat down a few hundred feet from the apartment for 30 seconds or so because it hurt so much. Today, I’m feeling a lot better, but my lower legs are still a bit sore.

It was cool to see the Marine Corps Osprey helicopter/plane converting to forward flight right over the Pentagon :-)

Anyway, that’s it for now - I’ll still probably run another marathon next year some time, maybe in the spring, so I have plenty of time to prepare.

My First Triathlon

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 02:09:03 GMT

I recently purchased a really nice road bike on Craig’s List for $550 for a 2008 Specialized Allez which is about $950 for this particular model (with tax). It is almost brand new, and I’ve been riding it to work. I’m very happy with the purchase so...

Swimming, biking and running are 3 of my very favorite sports, so it was inevitable that someday I would try the combination of all three.

Today I ran my first triathlon of events. It wasn’t a ‘formal’ triathlon, but I first swam (about 15 minutes), I rode my bike about 12 miles, and then I ran about 3 miles. I plan to maybe sometime next year enter a half-ironman which is a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and a 13.1 mile (half marathon) run.

There is definitely a difference in the muscle groups that you use; I really could feel my calves telling me that I had not used those particular muscles much.

I don’t want to do much training as I’m in the ‘taper’ phase of my marathon training... Less than a week until the Marine Corps Marathon... see you at the finish line :-)

Army 10 Miler

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 13:54:39 GMT

Today I ran the Army 10 miler with a time of 1 hour, 35 minutes (9:33 minutes / mile pace) here in Arlington, VA, starting and ending at the Pentagon. There were 26,000 registered runners, probably at least 22,000+ actually ran. There was quite a crowd, but it was fun.

I ran pretty fast for me. I walked only at each of the water stations which were every 2 miles, so I definitely was pushing my pace. I was pretty tired at the end. The nice thing was that I was in the top 49% of finishers :-)

Well, that’s all for now, the Marine Corps Marathon is in 3 weeks, so that’s the next challenge.

Long Time, No Blog (Again)...

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:50:18 GMT

Well, it’s been a really long time since I blogged, so I thought I’d better get at least one entry in before it becomes September :-)

Here’s what’s been going on:

Trip To Colorado Springs

At the beginning of August, I went to Colorado Springs for a meeting with Northern Command concerning biometric enabled facility access. It was a bit of a waste because the first day, there was a lady who hijacked the meeting from the presenter and sort of got on a personal agenda. At one point, someone stood up and said that “we’ve all come a long way, and we’d like to hear what Northcom has to say and then we can hear what you had to say.” She didn’t get the hint, so the first day was pretty much a total waste. The second day was a lot better because that lady wasn’t there because she had to go back to DC for some other meeting - Good Riddance!

I spent my spare time in Colorado Springs visiting DJ, Jeff, Raspberry the sheepdog, and other friends. I had an awesome discussion with a former member of the scout troop who is now a Marine Corps First Lieutenant who has spent 3 tours in Iraq concerning biometrics. He had some really great insights.

Raspberry was happy to see me, but he seems to have a purpose at his new home. I was petting him, and the people taking care of him have 2 kids who were playing outside, and one of the kids fell and started to cry, so Raspberry trotted over to make sure he was OK. When Razz was about halfway there, the boy realized that he wasn’t hurt at all, so he stopped crying and Razz trotted back to me. About 10 minutes later, the kids disappeared from view so he looks at me as if to say “Well, you can follow me, but I have to keep tabs on the kids” - He trotted to the corner of the house and stopped and wanted me to follow. Once He could see the kids again, he was happy. Needless to say, I was pretty impressed at his responsibility.

Trip to the Beach (Moclips Washington)

I spent a week out on the beach in Moclips, Washington with my brother and his family. It was nice, but one minor problem was that there was no Internet access. Can you believe that? I mean, that’s like practically uncivilized. Marti flew out for part of the time because she couldn’t take a whole week of vacation.

I ran several times, one 13.1 mile run, one 2.5 mile set of sprints up a short hill, and one 16 mile run. The 16 mile run was really hard because I only had 4 days between the 2 long runs, and it was hard.

Anyway, that’s it for now, so so long for now,

dB

Lessons From A Marathon - Change Your Reality

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 02:36:18 GMT

Well it’s been a few weeks since the marathon, and I’ve had time to reflect on the experience. You CAN change your reality - let me explain...

You can’t fake the training for a marathon. You can do a mediocre job of training for a 5K, you can go out and run a 10K and probably finish if you’re in decent condition. You can even probably finish a half-marathon without a lot of preparation.

But you can’t fake the training for a marathon. If you want to finish, you have to do the training.

A little over one year ago (June 2007), my reality was that I could only run 5 minutes without feeling like dying. Then I ran 6 minutes, then 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, and so on until I could run for 20 minutes. At that point, I knew I could complete my Army Physical Fitness Test.

I kept on running. In a few months, I completed 10K (6.2 miles). I had never run that far. I didn’t really have a solid plan to do a marathon, but I just kept on incrementally increasing my distance.

At the end of December, 2007, I ran 10 miles. It was snowing, it was cold, but it was exhilarating. I was out running at a wildlife refuge in New Jersey, but I had done it - 10 miles

At that point, I thought I might consider running a marathon. In February, I registered for the Seafair Marathon at the end of June. I had a goal...

Now that I had a goal, I needed a plan to reach that goal...

And I did it - I completed a marathon, without any injuries.

I had also hoped to complete in under 5 hours, but I finished in 5 hours, 10 minutes. I had a few delays during the run that impacted my time, so the next time I run I hope to reach the under 5 hour mark. (I mean really, at least 8 minutes to use the first bathroom)

Next stop... The Marine Corps Marathon... Washington DC, October 26, 2008 - Be there and see me cross the line :-)

That’s the reality

Seafair Marathon!!!

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:18:22 GMT

Ladies and Gentlemen, Introducing, Dan Bailey! Marathon Runner!

I completed the Seattle Seafair Marathon in 5 hours, 10 minutes 20.5 seconds! no injuries, no blisters, no lost toenails!

I was 462 out of 533 total full marathon runners
I was 306 out of 339 men in the full marathon
I was 44 out of 46 in my age group, but I’m guessing that most of those guys weren’t running their first marathon.

Here are my results:

Split 1 1:09:29.2
Split 2 1:22:35.9
Split 3 1:14:20.8
Split 4 1:23:54.5

You can see that those hills around mile 7-8 slowed me down, but I picked it up pretty well in the 3rd segment. I had to walk and run a lot around mile 18-24 because my knees were hurting a bit, but once I hit mile 24.5 or so, I ran most of the way. I think by that time, I was just ready for it to be over :-)

We drove the course the night before the race and I was really glad that I did that as it helped me prepare mentally for race as it went along. At about mile 7 there was a hill that was really wicked. I walked up that hill but it really went a lot better that I expected. I wasn’t really tired from it.

Over all, it went pretty well. I had hoped to complete in under 5 hours, but the weather was really hot (about 90 degrees at the end of the race). Also the course was REALLY hilly. At about mile 15, i was talking with a father-daughter team that had run 37 marathons and they said that this was a really hard marathon for a first time marathon since is so hilly.

It was great to run across the 520 floating bridge which which was opened to foot traffic for the first time in over 20 years.

It was great to see the mile 26 marker, make a turn and then see the ‘chute’ with the finish line at the end. I swear that last .2 miles was a bit longer than a normal .2 miles ;-)

Once the race was over, I just wanted to get out of there and into the shade, so I didn’t really hang around for any of the end-of-race festivities.

Of course, this isn’t the end, I stupidly registered for the Marine Corps Marathon, October 26th. I plan to take a few weeks off of training, but I’ll do a few runs beginning in the middle of July I think...

It was definitely a great experience and I would recommend it to anyone.

Wanna run in the Marine Corps Marathon with me?

Marathon Countdown...

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 22:12:04 GMT

Well, there’s one week to go before the marathon. I’ve been a bit concerned that I haven’t been running enough, but you are supposed to taper down the running as you get close to the actual date of the marathon. However I just read on http://www.Marathontraining.com that you should do your longest run a minimum of 4 weeks from the date of the marathon. That gives your body some to heal and recover from the training.

I’ve done the following runs the past few weeks:

21         miles on May 27th
8.25 miles on the 29th
3         miles on the 6th of June
10         miles on the 8th
13.1         miles on the 15th

I’ve been having a bit of soreness in left leg, where the leg joins my torso, so I’m trying to give it a rest. Also, during my last run, my knees were bugging me a bit. I’m probably going to do just a few more short runs of 3-6 miles or so.

I booked a hotel to stay the night before the race that is about one and a half blocks from the finish line. I hope I can get a late check out so I can take a shower after the race. :-) Showers are good, clean is even better :-)

Anyway, that’s what’s been going on with me, I’ll try to put together a longer post either after the race or maybe this week.

More Swimming

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:02:48 GMT

I went swimming again tonight for 30 minutes - it’s been over a 100 degrees outside, so it’s really nice to cool off in a nice pool.

Swimming

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:01:33 GMT

We have a really nice indoor pool here at the apartment where we’re living. I decided I should do a bit more swimming to work other muscles than the muscles used in running, so I spent 40 minutes swimming tonight - it was great!

Running 21 miles along 'da Beach

Fri, 30 May 2008 02:59:25 GMT

OK, my training took a short break while was in Texas... OK, I didn’t do a darn thing; for eight days I didn’t run at all. Zero, zip, zilch, nichts...

I ran 6 miles the other day just to get back into the swing of things and today I ran 21 miles. Marti drove me down island 21 miles and dropped me off and I ran back to the house. It was pretty monotonous as the first part (about 6 miles) was houses and businesses, but then the next 12 mies was just undeveloped land that looked pretty much the same, dunes, road, dunes, and more dunes. I was using my Nike+ and iPod, but it was kind of hard to hear the “book on tape” that I was listening to because of all the traffic that roared by.

I walked about the last third of it as I was very tired from the constant wind that was blowing. I also got a sunburn on my left side :-(

The good news is that I feel fine and can go up and down the stairs in the house :-) (OK, I can go sloooowly up the stairs, but, what do you expect, I just went 21 miles ;-)

20.2 Miles

Mon, 12 May 2008 03:37:54 GMT

Today I ran 20.2 miles today. I ran on the Fairfax County Cross County Trail, from almost at the Potomac river to the Vienna Metro. It was in horrible conditions. It was really muddy and twice I had to take off my running shoes and socks so my feet wouldn’t get totally wet which would cause blisters. It took me about 3:48 minutes to run that distance, and it was raining for the last five miles, but I suppose that was good practice for running in the Seattle Marathon :-)

14.5 Miles!

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:18:16 GMT

Yesterday I ran along the W&OD Trail, from about mile marker 33 to past mile marker 18.5.

The good news is that I’m not even very sore tonight. This morning I was a bit sore, but it’s fine tonight. I think that’s a really good thing.

Half Marathon Plus!

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:05:32 GMT

Today I ran 13.5 miles in 2 hours, 18 minutes, starting at Mount Vernon (George Washington's house) and ran back home to Crystal City :-) not bad, not bad...

200 Miles!

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:10:28 GMT

I just realized that after my run yesterday, I've now run 200.08 miles since my purchase of my Nike + for my iPod!

6 mile run

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:17:28 GMT

There's some sort of problem with the Nike+ website and iTunes. I can't upload my latest runs :-( I've done another 43 miles since the last time I had an Internet connection.

24

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:17:03 GMT

Yesterday I was coming out of the Archives Metro stop and there was a huge clump of people out on the sidewalk. I realized that someone had been filming a show of some kind, so I wandered around looking that the equipment etc. I saw a guy with a logo on his hat and I said to him "Ah, I know what you're doing. I've seen you on the special features section - You're the director". He smiled and said, "yeah". (The logo on the had had an LCD looking font that simply said "24")

:-)

Army Physical Fitness Test

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:02:57 GMT

50 push-ups
69 sit-ups
16:36 2 mile run

That's pretty darn good :-)

Soil From The Garden of Galadriel

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 08:08:12 GMT

Those of you who have read "The Lord of the Rings", remember the various gifts that the Elf Queen Galadriel gave the members of the Fellowship of the Ring. Most of the members of the Fellowship received things that were to prove useful in the upcoming journey.

Sam however was given a small box that contained a seed from a special type of tree that was only found in a few special places, specifically certain Elvish places. The box also had some soil from Galadriel's garden.

When Sam returned home after the long and difficult journey to destroy the One Ring, he found that the evil that had terrorized the rest of the world had come to the Shire while he was away. Many trees had been cut down, gardens destroyed, and the waters were polluted. So Sam used the soil to help re-build his beloved Shire.

My mother passed away in 1999, and when I visited my Dad in August, I saw a small jar of parsley that she had grown in her garden labeled "Parsley 1998" in her scratchy handwriting. I asked my Dad if I could have it, since it obviously hadn't been used. He said sure, so I took it here in DC to use. I know that the parsley is probably lost much of its flavor, but I used it to make a salad dressing that was just phenomenal.I've also made some really great soups recently in a crock pot, and every time I use just a bit of that parsley.

I know it seems silly, but that parsley is like the soil of Galadriel; it's a reminder of the incredible woman that my mother was. I'm missing her right now.

Yesterday was my Aunt Edie's 80th birthday, and she is suffering with advanced Alzheimer's disease. She too was an incredible lady, and it was sad to think of her, sitting in a basically vegetive state in a skilled nursing facility. She had he most effective laugh and I'll never forget her.

:-/