Mile 1 – 7:07 – Two months ago, I was well on my way to running a huge PR. I thought something in the 1:25-1:27 range certainly wasn’t out of line with what I thought I would be capable of. Breaking 1:30 is a huge goal of mine. Coming into this race, I had a strange few weeks of training (no fault of my own, really). I didn’t get a chance to run any other races. I hadn’t done any real speed work for 6-7 weeks. In all honesty, I had no idea what I could run. I tried to run a workout on Monday that would indicate I was in sub-1:30 pace. It failed miserably, but at least it taught me something. Not knowing what kind of time I should shoot for, I threw a dart at the wall and guessed 1:35-ish (which would be about 7:15 pace). Was hoping to be closer to 7:20 for this first mile, but overall not bad.

Mile 2 – 7:03 – A little quicker than I was hoping for, but I’m feeling good. I actually even lost about 10 seconds this mile tying my shoe, so I definitely wanted to back off a little bit, though. I’ve got no problem running 7′s, but if I’m going to do it, I’d rather run 7:20s for a few miles and progress down to it from 6-11 or something like that.

Mile 3 – 7:16 – This is more where I was hoping to be. Was hoping to see my daughter and extended family during this mile, but I missed them completely.

Mile 4 – 7:22 – Still feeling good at this point. At this point, I’m 12 seconds ahead of where I wanted to be, but I wish I would’ve went about it a different way. Still confident that I can run a strong race here which is the only real goal.

Mile 5 – 7:34 – Very pretty mile. This is a straight mile (one of only two in the whole course), which was much appreciated. Fargo may have a reputation of being somewhat of a small and/or boring city compared to other metropolitan areas, but one of the greatest things about this race is how many fans it brings out. There are no “lulls” in fan support in this race. There are literally fans lining the course 100% of the time you are running. Very awesome!

Mile 6 – 7:21 – Starting to “feel it” a little bit. I’m a little miffed because I thought given my pretty good cardio base, I wouldn’t start to feeling this discomfort for another 3-4 miles. Pushing through 3 miles of some serious discomfort is one thing, but pushing through half the race wasn’t something I was hoping for.

Mile 7 – 7:30 – We’ve reached the “turnaround” point. While the course isn’t a straight out and back, there is a two block overlap where you see runners few minutes ahead of you and a few minutes behind you. I see my friend Derek (went on to run 1:32) who is looking really good ahead of me and my friend Vaun (who went on to run 1:39) who is looking really good behind me. Why is everyone looking good and I feel like garbage?

Mile 8 – 7:30 – At this point, I know the last few miles are going to be a bit of a death march. I’ve had half marathons where I’ve felt like a world beater at mile 8 and half marathons where I’ve felt like the slowest man on the planet who spends more time contemplating the reasons why it would make sense to drop out. It wasn’t that bad at this point, but I actually was really surprised to see this mile as fast as it was. It felt like I was fat man shuffling around 10 minute pace.

Mile 9 – 8:07 – Actual mile time is a little quicker than this. For the first time, I saw my family and I stopped to say hi to my 2-year old little girl. My time wasn’t going anything I was going to brag about, so if I finish 30 seconds later than I would’ve had I not stopped, I didn’t really care at this point. I’d given my family a plan how they could see both me and my wife Sara about 3-5 times, but for whatever reasons, this was the only time I saw them on the whole course. I was a little bummed about that…

Mile 10 – 7:48 – Kept it under 8 which is the only real goal at this point. Again, this felt a whole lot slower than it actually was. I suppose that’s a positive to take out of this.

Mile 11 – 8:06 – Here’s the downside to setting your playlist beforehand. I always start the music slow and progressively build to some very fast, aggressive music towards the end. However, when you are running a full minute slower than you’d hoped to be running (and, once again, it felt even slower), you feel kind of dumb. Here I am running a pedestrian pace running to this super aggressive, pump up music.

Mile 12 – 8:35 – This mile sucked. Up until this point, I was thinking I could run in the 1:38s. I know that no matter how bad I’m feeling, I can suck it up and kick it for one mile at the end of the race if it means I can hit a certain time. At this point, I know that I’m going to be smack dab in the 1:40s (blah!). I keep a look out behind me because there was an article about a college kid who was running while juggling and hoping to be about 1:40. I don’t care how bad I’m feeling – I’m not getting beat by a juggler.

Mile 13 – 8:09 – My friend Vaun caught me this mile. I ran about a quarter mile with him. He was still strong so I let him go and cheered him on. If I were a little bit mentally tougher, I’d have try to hang in with him. Admittedly, though, I’d kind of thrown my chips in earlier this race and I just didn’t really care at this point. That’s certainly not the attitude to have and probably is something I need to work on in the future. In all honesty, though, besides the obvious fitness losses, I think going 6-7 weeks with no speed work coming into this race hurt my race day mental toughness and overall confidence. I’m hoping to develop that a little more over these next few months of training.

Last .1 – 0:49 – One of the coolest finishes of any race ever. You take a sharp left turn and head into the service entrance of the Fargodome for the last hundred meters or so. You can check out my finish here. I’m the guy in the red shorts, long black songs, backward hat and bright green shirt who’s not really kicking it in. I finished in an official time of 1:40:22 which averages out to 7:40/mi.

Overall, I’m not really pleased with my time because I think it isn’t quite an indication of all the hard work I’ve put in. Since August, I’ve been very consistent in my training. January thru March, I was running workouts at a level I’ve never run before while consistently running at least four days a week.

Because of my 6 weeks on interrupted training along with being put on a drug that slows your maximum heart rate (beta blockers), I just had six weeks of training that were mediocre at best. I actually only got off the beta blockers a few days before the race. Given all that I was dealing with, I’m 0% bothered that my time wasn’t a PR or wasn’t under my goal of 1:30 simply because I’m happy to be running and training like normal again. Had I run this race on beta blockers, I would’ve finished in 2+ hrs and would’ve been miserable in doing it. As it was, I felt sluggish towards the end of the run, but somewhat strong as a whole. I think at the end of the day, I can be proud that I trained really, really hard to run what turned out to be a mediocre race. The result was somewhat out of my hands. Had I not stopped to tie my shoe twice, say hello to my daughter, and pushed a little hard in the last few miles, could’ve I have snuck into the 1:38-ish range? Sure… maybe. As it was, though, I’m very proud to be back on the path towards hopefully one day reaching my goal.

The post Fargo Half Marathon – Race Report appeared first on brenthanson.net.

This song has been a moderate success on alternative radio even though, from what I can tell, he doesn’t even have a full cd out yet (just a four song + one remix EP). I’m very curious to follow what his career path looks like in the future.

The post Music Video of the Week – Dan Croll – From Nowhere appeared first on brenthanson.net.

For the seventh time in my life, I’m spending today preparing for running the Fargo Half Marathon having no real idea what kind of shape I’m in. I think I’m ready to run (moderately, for me) fast.

Last year, I ran a 1:43:16 half marathon. Looking at my training, I ran 127 miles per week in January, 163 in February, 63 in March, 35 in April, and 47 in the half month leading up to the half in May. Good start to the year, but hardly the ideal training if you want to run the half marathon.

This year, I’ve run 161 in January (+34), 146 in February (-17), 139 miles in March (+76), 91 miles in April (+56), and 87 miles in the half month leading up to the half this May (+40) for a total of 189 more miles in the first few months of the year compared to last year.

When comparing my top few runs of the year, I seem to be ahead of the game as well. In January of 2012, my best workout was 5×1 mile at 6:40, 6:35, 6:31, 6:27 and 6:07 (6:28/avg) with 2:30 rest. In January of 2013, my best workout was 8 miles with no rest in 50:30 or 6:18/mile. On February 28th, 2012, I ran 10 miles in 1:11:20 (7:08/mi). Coincidentally, on February 28th, 2012, I ran 10 miles in 1:05:00 (6:30/mi). My best run of March 2012 was a pretty pathetic 6 Miles in 42:38 (7:06/mi). This March, I ran 7.62 Miles in 47:27 (6:13/mi). The difference in my shape wasn’t even close. Then, I had my “medical setback” at the end of the month. Despite being on medications that slowed my heart rate and really affected my body, I was able to run 12 Miles in 1:31:50 (7:39/mile) which was significantly better than my best run of April 2012 (4 miles in 30 minutes – 7:30/mile). My best run of May leading up to the half in 2012 was 6 Miles in 46:30 (7:45/mi) compared to the 7.78 Miles in 56:00 (7:11/mi) I did this year.

Everything in this training cycle hasn’t gone perfect, but I’m certainly in better shape than I was last year. I think running a sub-1:30 (which has been a huge goal of mine since I ran a 1:32 half marathon at the tender age of 23 in 2005) may not quite be in the cards, but I’m hoping to have a positive experience. I’m hoping to continue my motivated training with the goal of maybe one day going under 1:30 with a solid summer/fall of consistent training.

The post Y’all Ready For This? appeared first on brenthanson.net.

One day, I decided to play the music video for her (which I hadn’t yet seen). Little did I know I was just about to expose my daughter to her first ever kidnapping and/or incidence of domestic violence. Oops. Chalk that one up on the list of my finest moments in bad parenting.

The post Music Video of the Week – Alt-J – Breezeblocks appeared first on brenthanson.net.

I’ve run the Fargo Half Marathon 6 times. Other than the very first Fargo Half Marathon (2005 when I ran my second fastest ever half in 1:32:53), they all have had one thing in common. I’ve not run particularly well. I could make a laundry list of reasons, but I’ve either been busy with basketball and not trained, been injured, or ran with others. I’ve always said I’d really like to run that even fast, though. I’ve always thought if I was fit, I could finish in the top 50 of a race of over 5000 runners. Last year, 50th place was 1:27:11 which doesn’t seem crazy out line for what I could possibly run.

This year was the first year in a long time that I actually consistently trained through the entire winter. This year, I’ve already run 157 miles more than I had at this point last year. My workouts have been phenomenal. I was to the point where I could very comfortably run 10 miles at 6:30 pace. I got myself to the point where I was running 8 miles near 49 minutes which is just mind boggling for me. It’s way ahead of any sort of fitness I’ve ever had.

Unfortunately, as I really started to amp up my training, I had a bit of setback (11 setbacks to be exact). I spent a few days in the hospital and got put on a medication (beta blockers). I didn’t think it was going to be too bad, but it was a miserable drug. It made me so tired I was falling asleep at 6:30 PM some nights. I gained somewhere between 10-15 pounds in a month. Worse of all (for me), it slowed my running by about 1 minute per mile.

This was all incredibly disappointing news to me. I had a huge goal of breaking 1:30 in the Fargo Half this year. I ran a 1:32 in 2005 and a 1:31 in 2008 along with a handful of races in the 1:33-1:36 range. Last fall, I rocked out a 1:34:53 which gave me confidence that I could definitely dip under 1:30 with some training. The training was going incredibly well until my setback. Now, a return trip to the doctor has resulted in me being able to wean off the beta blockers meaning no more falling asleep right after supper and hopefully I’ll be able to run a respectable half marathon in two weeks.

Although I don’t know what my prospects of breaking 1:30 are (probably fairly slim), I’m excited that once again I can just be myself. No performance “de-hancing” drugs holding me back. Even if I don’t break 1:30 this time, I’ve got a chance to put in the training and run some good races this summer/fall.

The post Two weeks! appeared first on brenthanson.net.

The post Music Video of the Week – Bloc Party – Team A appeared first on brenthanson.net.

A few thoughts on all the happenings in the NBA lately…

• I highly recommend you check out Jerry Zgoda’s 5-part interview with David Kahn. I’ve defended Kahn in the past, but I’ve really soured on him these last two years. I can even defend some of his wrong moves because they were, at the time, not a terrible move. But reading the interview with him, I got the same feeling I get every time I’ve heard him talk over the last few years. First, he takes little to know responsibility making excuses for every little thing that he does. He can’t say “yeah, the Flynn pick was terrible.” He blames scouts, says how all the players and coaches thought Flynn was going to be the next big thing, and says if it wasn’t for a hip injury that nobody knew about, he probably would’ve been good. He forgets to mention how people questioned it at the time and he admonished them with his smug “I”m wayyyy smarter than you” responses to any questions. Jonny Flynn was the next Isiah Thomas the same way Darko was the next Vlade Divac. And Wes Johnson, Michael Beasley, Lazar Hayward, Anthony Randolph, and Kurt Rambis were all fantastic additions to the franchise that unfortunately just didn’t work out for various reasons. Worst of all, Kahn thinks this year’s team was THE answer except (another excuse) they got hurt. We were the worst 3-point shooting team in the league. Our shooting guard situation has been a mess for as long as I can remember. Defensively, we’ve got issues. If sneaking into the playoffs as a 7 or 8-seed to get crushed by OKC or the Spurs after four years was the measuring stick Kahn had to whether or not his team was successful, it’s quite obvious he’s not the answer. If you are a student and your report card comes back with 3 D’s, 3 C’s, and 2 B’s semester after semester, you can make all the excuses in the world but the bottom line is you are a bad student. Worst of all, this glorious exit interview shows that at no point in his four year tenure did he figure out every time he opened his yap, he wound up making himself and the team look idiotic.

• Elsewhere around the league (you know, to the teams that are still playing basketball). Three teams are already into the second round – Miami, who looks unbeatable, San Antonio, who looks like the solid, veteran squad they are, and Golden State, who shocked the Nuggets in the first round. The only second round match-up that’s currently set is Golden State/San Antonio. The Spurs are obviously going to be favored. If Curry can get some open looks (not a given since I’m guessing he’ll be seeing a heavy dose of Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green guarding him) and Bogut manages to neutralize Duncan, the Warriors at least have a chance to make the series entertaining.

• Some very entertaining story lines tonight. New York wore black to Boston’s “funeral” but failed to close out the series. Carmelo looked like bad Carmelo and JR Smith looked like bad JR Smith which could mean bad things for the squad from NYC moving forward. The C’s drew a bad draw for referees in tonight’s game with the atrocious trio of Ken Mauer, Ed Malloy and Bennett Salvatore. So basically, anything could happen. Would love to see a game 7 in this series where the drama has been far superior to the actual play on the court.

• Elsewhere, Indiana and Atlanta is on tonight. Just thought you should know that…

• In the late game, Houston is trying to force a game 7 with the Russel Westbrook-less Thunder. I don’t think OKC has what it takes to win it all, so a small part of me is cheering for them to go down in such a fashion that would get Scott Brooks fired. In January, I wrote a column questioning why everyone hates Russell Westbrook. I talked about only 3 of the 9 rotation players for OKC having any offensive abilities whatsoever. Now, people are starting to see what Russ brought to this team. I’m cheering for OKC simply because I’ve got a non-sexual man-crush on Kevin Durant, but this certainly should be another interesting one to watch.

• In the final game, the Grizzlies are trying to close out LA at home. This has the chance to be another great game. If anything, there is a fairly high chance we see someone throw a punch (Z-Bo? Matt Barnes? DeAndre Jordan? Tony Allen? Caron Butler?) This has been another fun series that I’m hoping goes to a 7th game. I’m interest to see if Paul responds and carries the load. Is Blake healthy? Can Memphis guard Bledsoe? Can LA stop the bigs of Memphis?

• People do realize there is a chance that that the NBA semi-finals could feature the Hawks, Celtics, Nets, Rockets, and Grizzlies? What kind of ratings hit would the league take on that?

The post NBA Jottings appeared first on brenthanson.net.

Robbie Rogers may end up being 1st openly gay male athlete to PLAY in a major US team sport. Trained with LA Galaxy Tue, may unretire at 25.

— Grant Wahl (@GrantWahl) May 1, 2013

Casually, I just replied to him “Love soccer but MLS isn’t major yet.” He replied “Soccer (MLS + everything else) is a major sport in US. Bigger than ice hockey for me”

All of the sudden my Twitter feed blew up. I had 25 @ replies within a matter of a few minutes, most of whom – including soccer writers and MLS players – wanted to tell me how stupid I was for thinking the MLS isn’t a major power because the MLS averaged more fans per game than NBA or NHL.

Which is completely true. MLS averaged about about 1,500 fans per game more than the NBA or NHL. Therefore we can say without a shadow of a doubt MLS has surpassed the NHL and the NBA, correct?

No even close.

If you take all of the people who have attending an MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLS game into one pool, the MLS would account for 4.4% of the total attendance. Yet the NFL, which has half the games of MLS accounts for nearly 3 times the amount of tickets sold as MLS.

Then, you compare where the real place where major sports make money, it’s not even close. ESPN pays $8 million annually for 20 games it airs on ESPN and ESPN2 along with 21 games they air on ESPN Deportes. NBC pays $10 million annually for 41 games + 5 playoff games they air on NBC and NBC Sports. UniMás pays $9-10 million for 26 games and Univision Deportes Network pays an undisclosed amount to air 23 games. Assuming Univision Deportes Network pays in the same ballpark ($8-10 million) as the other companies, it’s fair to say the MLS is pulling in around $40 million in national tv money along with relatively small figures for local tv rights and the DirecTV pass.

Meanwhile, the NBA, NFL, and MLB all make well over $1 billion dollars per year (or close to $4.4 billion per year in the case of the NFL) or approximately 110 times what the MLS makes per year in tv money.

Getting back to the main point… Grant Wahl was making a point that Robbie Rogers was thinking about coming out of retiring at the age of 25 and playing for the Los Angeles Galaxy. And good for him for coming back. I’m looking forward to when this is a complete non-story. Ellen was the first person in the limelight I can remember coming out of the closet in 1997. In 1997, it was a real talking point with all of America. Now, she’s just kinda Ellen. Which is what it should be. With each year that has passed, more and more people have opened up about their lives and it’s seemed to matter less and less. Two weeks ago, the biggest female basketball star in the world – Brittney Griner – came out as gay and it basically a non-story. Which, in a way, is exactly what it should be.

I’m not gay. Growing up and living in the midwest, I barely even have any gay friends. I’ve had a handful of acquaintances that have come out along with a few co-workers. As a whole, I’ve found them to be a very pleasant group of people. And since their is about a one-in-a-kajillion chance that I’m ever going to sleep with any of them, what do I care what they do when they go home from work?

Jason Collins may not be the biggest name in basketball, but his coming out is a watershed moment for professional sports. Since Ellen came out, an incredible amount of progress has been made as far as gay rights in concerned in America. The progress hasn’t been leaps and bounds that some would like to see, but rather slow and steady steps. Before Jason Collins, Brittney Griner, and Robbie Rogers, there have been athletes in and around sports like John Amaechi, LZ Granderson, Billie Jean King, Greg Louganis, Sheryl Swoopes, Megan Rapinoe, Esera Tuaolo, and Martina Navratilova that have paved the way. In other walks of life, you see celebrities such as Neil Patrick Harris, Clay Aiken, Elton John, Michelle Rodriguez, Anderson Cooper, Rosie O’Donnell, Michael Stipe, and Zachary Quinto have showed that being gay isn’t an affliction as some conservatives would have you believe, but rather it’s just kind of who you are. The Bloc Party is one of my absolute favorite bands. In 2007, when it came out that lead singer Kele Okereke was gay, it did nothing to change how much I liked their music. Which is exactly how it should be.

A professional athlete in one of three major sports coming out as gay is significant, though. Whether MLS fans choose to believe it or not, their sport isn’t even close to the same stratosphere as NFL, MLB, or the NBA by any metric you choose whether it be finances, television ratings or Q scores. The band fun. might have sold a lot of songs in the past year, but they ain’t The Rolling Stones or U2 no matter how you try to split it.

Jason Collins would probably feel comfortable with me calling him a fringe player in a major sports league (which still makes him one of the 500 greatest NBA players on the planet Earth right now). Someday, a star athlete likely in one of the major sports which will be another significant step. Then one day, they’ll be afforded the same human rights as anyone else such as being able to be on a spouses life/health insurance, etc. Until then, I think we can all feel good that because of the courage Jason Collins has shown, the world is more tolerant place.

The post Don’t Ever Bad Mouth Soccer. Like… Ever. appeared first on brenthanson.net.

Yet all he’s got to do is sing “It’s the remix to Ignition…” and I’m back in. Throw in the backing band of one of my favorite bands and you’ve got a video that’s easily one of the strangest I’ve ever seen.

The post Music Video of the Week – Phoenix – 1901 (with R. Kelly) appeared first on brenthanson.net.

This song has been a moderate success on alternative radio even though, from what I can tell, he doesn’t even have a full cd out yet (just a four song + one remix EP). I’m very curious to follow what his career path looks like in the future.

The post Music Video of the Week – Dan Croll – From Nowhere appeared first on brenthanson.net.