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Running the Jacksonville Bank Marathon as Darth Vader

Posted in exercise, life, running with tags personal, running, Star Wars on January 18, 2012 by Paxton

In Dec 2010 I ran my first marathon. It was the Jacksonville Bank Marathon. I wanted to do something special so I ran it as The Flash. Well, I wore the Flash insignia on my shirt. My friend Mike ran it as Superman. Take a look.

So when I decided to run the marathon again in 2011, I wanted to again do something different. I decided to run as Darth Vader. I’ve talked about this decision several times on the Nerd Lunch Podcast, so I thought I’d share with you guys how we made the Vader costume and also made it “run friendly”.

First step, I bought a Darth Vader costume shirt. You can pretty much pick them up anywhere. This is an easy way to get the majority of the costume in one fell swoop. Plus, this is easier than attaching a bunch of crap to a black shirt. Especially when you will be running 26+ miles in said shirt + crap.

I then asked my wife who is an incredible seamstress to make me a mini-cape. My inspiration for this mini-cape came from a Superman costume shirt on Superherohype.com.

So, to begin, Steph got a yard of black matte fabric.

She then cut it into two rectangles with her rotary cutter. Next she sliced off the edges to make it taper outwards at the bottom.

Steph ironed down the edges to make it easier to hem.

Then she actually hemmed down the edges.

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Holy crap, I just ran a marathon!

Posted in exercise, life, movies, running with tags exercise, Held Over, life, movies, running on December 22, 2010 by Paxton

So, I ran my first marathon on Sunday. It was the culmination of many, many months of preparation and training. I officially signed up for and started training for this race back in May, so I’m glad that it’s all over now and I can say that I have now run a full marathon (26.2 miles). And I am even happy with my time; 5 hours and 10 minutes. The marathon was not as soul crushing and hard as I expected, but that’s not to say it was easy. I think the key for me was running the actual race with a buddy. My friend Mike and I ran the race together and provided each other with much needed distracting conversations and encouragement especially in the later miles (20+).

The marathon I ran was part of a larger group of races called The Tri-2B Tuff Challenge.

The Tri-2B Tuff Challenge consists of three distance races in three months. You can either do three half marathons or two half marathons and a full marathon. I did the latter.

The first race was the Jacksonville Marine Corps Half Marathon on Oct 2. Mike and I mistakenly believed that race started at 8am so we showed up ready to run at 7:30am. However, when we showed up people were dismantling the starting line. After asking around we discovered that the race actually started at 7am. Undaunted, we backed our butts up to the dismantled starting line, started our watches and ran the race anyway. It took a while, but we wound up catching up with some of the stragglers and finishing the race anyway.

The second race was the Outback Steakhouse Distance Classic Half Marathon on Thanksgiving Day. We double checked the starting time for that race and showed up early so we started with the official clock. This race was awesome. I enjoyed the course and it was actually fun to run it.

The last race was the Jacksonville Bank Marathon (or you could run the half marathon) on Dec 19 (this past Sunday). Finish those three races and you win the Tri-2B Tough Challenge. I’m glad I did it. Since I was training for the marathon anyway the two half marathons in Oct and Nov kept me from slacking off too much on training.

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Tour de Pain Aftermath: Laying low

Posted in exercise, life, movies, running, TV shows with tags exercise, life, movies, running, Tour de Pain, TV shows on August 14, 2009 by Paxton

I’ve been somewhat wrecked this week. This past weekend I ran the Jacksonville Tour de Pain.

Like the image says, the race is a grueling 3 races in 24 hours. The first race was on Friday evening at 7:30pm. It was out at Jacksonville Beach. The distance was 4 miles and you ran it on the actual beach. I don’t know if any of you guys have ever run on sand before, but it’s hard. REALLY hard. 4 miles on the beach is probably like 6 miles on asphalt. At least, that’s how it felt. Actually, I felt worse after running the beach 4 miles than I did after running the Gate River Run’s 9 miles. But part of the reason is the humidity and heat. It was overcast when I ran the Gate River Run. Anyway, I was looking to beat 40 minutes which would be 10 minute miles, but I seriously died the last mile and wound up crossing the finish line at 40:26. Just over 10 min miles. I was really not happy with that performance, but I had to live with it. I mainly was pissed about how I fell apart during the last mile. It was terrible. The time looks better than it felt, I’ll tell you that. Here’s a pic of me crossing the finish line for the 4 mile race. I felt like I was actually going to drop dead at that point.

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How my iPod Shuffle controls my runs like a mini-dictator

Posted in Apple, exercise, humor, iPod, life, running, technology with tags Apple, exercise, humor, iPod, life, running on April 16, 2009 by Paxton

Okay, I mentioned earlier that I ran the Gate River Run here in Jacksonville on Mar 14. Well, I was able to run the whole 9.3 miles and I finished in 1hr and 33minutes. That’s right at 10 minute miles. I’m happy with that and I hope to break that next year. If you want to see some pics of me during the race click here. Beware, I look ROUGH.

I’ve had a few people ask what I like to listen to when I’m running and the answer is my iPod Shuffle. I load it up with some awesome running tunes and then just let it pick the order. It’s great. As for the type of music, I enjoy hard rock and a bit of gangsta rap when I run. I need high energy to keep me going. No ballads or wimpy crap. I need ball-drivin’, head-bangin’, car-crashin’, ear-splittin’ RAAAAWWWWWWK when I run.

The other day I was feeling saucy so I hooked my Shuffle up to the computer and set iTunes to auto-load songs. This means I have no idea what was picked as everything was just picked at random. Normally, I tell iTunes what songs I want, then the iPod picks the playlist order, but this time I let iTunes pick the songs. FYI…that was a HUGE mistake. I have this running condition called MADD, Music Attention Deficit Disorder. I may LOVE a song in the car, but when I’m running, odds are, I’m going to hate it. Seriously, when I’m running, the chances of me liking a song are cut to 50%, at least.

Want to know how my run went? Below is the horrible sound track to a man dying. There were some good songs, but then, there was everything else.

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Gate River Run: My declaration of intent

Posted in Gate River Run, life, personal, running with tags exercise, personal, running on February 16, 2009 by Paxton

Jacksonville’s biggest (read “Most Popular”) race is the Gate River Run (click image up top for more info). I”ve been lurking around the event since I started running several years ago. However, I’ve been too chicken to actually sign up and run it, preferring to only run 5K races. Well, the wife got fed up with me saying that someday I would do it so she pretty much has forced me to do it under threat of spousal violence (ie kicking my ass).

So, I officially started training this past week and I turned in my entry form on Saturday. And just to keep myself honest, I’m making a delcaration of intent to the 3 readers who randomly happen by my blog looking for info about the Hula Burger. I’ll be running the Gate River Run 15K (9.3 miles) on March 14, 2009. It’s possible I may (repeat MAY) try to parlay this into a half-marathon by the end of the year. We’ll see.

Today is President’s Day. My wife, as a first grade teacher, has today off so I decided to also take it off so we can spend it together. Have a good day whether you have it off or not. I’ll be back in a day or so with another article.

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