(Historical Post: From February 3, 2011)
I'm always a bit saddened at the end of IBM's Lotusphere in Orlando each year yet looking forward to the upcoming year considering the innovative steps we at IBM are promoting. This year's Lotusphere message of "Get Social. Do Business" transcends our products and has the potential to revolutionize how companies work. My personal focus at IBM is on helping companies create "Exceptional Web Experiences"--something we have been doing for a decade--but now IBM Software allows "Exceptional Work Experiences." Think what facebook and blogging have done in your personal life and apply that to your work life!
...but, I'm straying off the mark here. This is my personal blog. My technology blog is at Polleck's Portal Ponderings (if and when I get around to blogging there).
...but, I'm straying off the mark here. This is my personal blog. My technology blog is at Polleck's Portal Ponderings (if and when I get around to blogging there).
The personal thing I kicked off this week was training for my annual 5K in April. Typically, at best, my training happens in April since my target 5K is usually the last Sunday in April. Since that will be Easter Sunday this year, the 2011 Race of Grace in downtown Raleigh is scheduled for Sunday, May 1, 2011...
I've "run" these since 2005. (OK, OK, I admit--based on the speed, most of you would call it a "fast walk.") My goal is to improve on my fastest previous time of about 33 minutes in 2005 because I've gotten slower since 2005 with times ranging from 35 to 42 minutes for the 5K. I'm not getting any younger, but maybe I can still improve my time before my "big" milestone birthday this December.
In any case, instead of staying up late each night helping close down the bar at the Dolphin (precisely, I think it's called the "Lobby Lounge") and then dragging myself out of bed early for breakfast meetings, this year I resolved to head to Picabu for my free refill of Diet Coke well before midnight and then up at 5:45am to meet my running buddy for the week--my good work friend, Bennie Gibson. It turned out there was a nice running path between the Dolphin and Disney Studios...
(Picture credit: allears.net)
It's about a mile each way, which gave us nice (and fortunately short) runs each morning--"fortunately" both because we had breakfast meetings and because even two miles was a bit of a challenge.
One lesson learned: I've got to practice pacing myself. I run too hard, and then I'm out of breath. The other thing I learned was that even though it was shorts-and-t-shirt temperatures, it was still dark at 5:45am!
As you can see from the route pictured above, I got to try out my new Garmin 405CX GPS watch this week. We were running between 12:00 and 13:00 minutes per mile. That's not going to get me to my 33 minute 5K goal, but it's always difficult to run with someone new. As guys, we don't want to run too slowly and seem like wimps, but we also don't want the other person to have to say "whoa, slow down." I still don't know if this was a good pace for Bennie, but it was plenty fast for me after not enough exercise over the holidays.
Now, I'm looking forward to a weekend in Orlando with my son, Scott.
[This blog post is dedicated to Bennie Gibson, my running buddy this past week.]
