Laura's Birthday! Happy 30th!!

Laura turned the big three-oh today. She had some lunch with her parents and the kids and then dinner with my side at Beer Barrel. After the pizza we came back to our house for a home-cooked Carrot Cake that Whitney made. Yum!

Happy birthday, hun.

Last Club Arrow Flight - Erie, PA for Breakfast

I'm quitting the flying club for money saving reasons and to try some new and different things. I'll still be flying, but it won't be in a Piper product anymore. I had some pre-pay money still on account that I needed to use up and was able to schedule a breakfast visit with a buddy. Conveniently Greg M is going to school in Erie, PA which is the perfect distance away to "burn up" the remainder of my money.


I woke up at 6am and was out the door by 6:30. I took off around 7:15 and was in Erie, PA by 8:45. What a time machine! The weather was beautiful and I cruised over at 7,000' with only a small head wind. I popped in and out of a few puffies in PA (to log the elusive IMC) and landed at ERI where Greg was there to head out for some Panera breakfast treats. After the nickel tour of Erie, he dropped me back off at the airport to go study.


The flight home was a little bumpy down at 4000, but I had a great tailwind pushing me to 145-150 knots. Sweet. I was rerouted from the DJB VOR to the SKY VOR which put me over the water more than I wanted, but I was never more than 8 miles or so from land.

It was a great 3.2 in the Arrow and I'll miss that airplane. As I was shutting the hangar doors, I felt a little sad to know it was my last flight in it. Maybe sometime in the future. I was home before 1pm.

Check out all the photos by CLICKING HERE.

Flight Aware track going to Erie, PA
Flight Aware track coming back from Erie, PA

Air Force Marathon [20 Sep]

It's been a little less than a week since the Cleveland Half Marathon and I'm ready to start the 18 week training plan for the full marathon in Dayton, OH. I just signed myself up for the full 26.2 mile run of the USAF Marathon.

For training, I'll be using the Hal Higdon "Novice 2" schedule which gets you running up to 20 miles at one time before the big day. I may revisit this in a week or two and move up to another schedule that does more mileage. Last time I used the novice was for the Columbus Half Marathon last October which only took me to 10 miles for a 13.1 mile race and I didn't feel nearly as prepared.

Anyway, wish me luck and I'm looking forward to doing this one! The route starts at the USAF Museum and then around the grounds there, around the area and then through the current Wright-Patterson AFB and then back to the museum for the finish. Very cool surroundings.

Ready For the Sun!

Both of the kiddies have some sunglasses for the summer, but it seems Kaden likes to wear them all. Hmm - I think he should stick to the "pilot glasses" as he calls them.

Cleveland Half Marathon and 10K Pictures

All photos from BrightRoom. Unfortunately none of them of Laura or I are good enough to pay for. Here are the ones they took of us.

First Bike Ride of the Year

The weather and timing came together today and I finally pulled the Masi off the garage wall, lubed it up and put some air in the tires. Everything seemed good to go so I put the HRM on and headed out for an hour-plus ride around the country side. It felt good and I took some water and some Gu Energy Gel. (Mmm. It was very good.)

21.5 miles
1hr 8 minutes
18.6mph avg
26.8mph max

(Click graph for full size.)

Suunto X6HR Info - Cleveland Half Marathon

I picked up a Suunto X6HR a couple days before the race on Steep and Cheap for a GREAT price and strapped it on for the run. During the run, I chose to stay below 160 and did so for the most part. There were a few times on hills or towards the end where I went above, but that's to be expected. I hope this will help in training for the next race.

Anyway, here is the chart that this thing spits out into my PC. You can see the graph, of course, on top with HR being the top and altimeter being the bottom. Also they have the important numbers spelled out on the bottom.

(Click the chart to see it in full size.)

Cleveland Half Marathon and 10K

Laura and I headed to Cleveland yesterday for today's run. We stayed at the Crown Plaza downtown which was conveniently about one block from the run's start/finish line. Sweet.






After hitting up the "convention" to pick up our packets, race numbers and a few freebies, we headed out to Little Italy for some dinner at La Dolce Vita. (Thanks to Melissa K for the recommendation!) We then hit up an Italian bakery across the street for dessert.






Sunday morning dawned cloudy and rainy - not fun for a long run, but it was better than super-hot. Justin and I ran the half marathon together in 2:15:22 and Laura did the 10K in 1:12:24 with Crystal coming in at 1:14:01. You can see all the stats on the CM Results Page.

After the race and some showers, we headed to the mall in Parma for some shopping and returns at Express, lunch at Charley's and then headed home.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Kaden!

I was just getting ready to head to bed and noticed that it's 0030 on 5/5. Kaden's birthday is officially here, but he'll have officially been "out" in about 12 hours.

Update: We ended up having an afternoon party for the kids and then a family-only party in the evening which started at Texas Roadhouse and ended at our house with cake, ice cream and coffee. Kaden had a great day and has the new toys to prove it.

Check out all the photos by CLICKING HERE.