What if it went the other way?

It is the day after.  Finally.  Mitt Romney finally conceded last night and the election is over.  Reading some of the social media postings this morning, some are happy, others are not.  The postings of the despondent all resonate the same... the end is near, stock up on weapons and ammo now, and some are even blaming god or praying to god for help.  Well here is the deal... All of the same rhetoric almost verbatim was launched four years ago after the election and did anything dire happen then?  No.  We are all still here.  Just as we would be if the Republicans won the White House.  Life would continue to go on.

I have learned a lot this election both as a Republican AND an American.  I have learned a lot about myself as a result.

But as a Republican I have to say that the party failed and failed miserably to put forth a viable candidate.  Mitt Romney at least to me was completely unrelateable.  I never felt the connection.  Even months ago if I were working or downstairs and had the TV on and if he would be on a show, or begin to speak I would automatically mute it.  His voice, opinions and ideals always made me shut down.

My buddy William who I would say is a solid liberal yet reasonable and fair often just said that he didn't trust Romney.  But the one thing that William said over and over to me is that Mitt Romney has never said really, "why" he wants to be president.  I think he was right.

This point may seem sort of abstract and random but give a second and I will tie it all together....  So last night Melissa and I are sitting and watching the results come in and she informs me that Mitt Romney originally didn't want to run for president, that it was actually his wife who pushed him in that direction.  Well that sort of clicked and made some sense but I had yet to connect the dots until later, after Romney's concession speech.

When Mitt Romney and his family were leaving the stage after the concession speech, I saw two things... Romney with a relieved and almost relaxed look on his face ( a first) and his wife, who was obviously upset and in turn looked like SHE was the one who lost.

So this is my thought... Putting the three points together, I don't think that Mitt Romney really truly wanted to be President.  He was pushed in that direction but I don't think that his heart was in it and I don't believe he was truly passionate about winning.  And that is why I think that I never felt any affinity towards him as a candidate.  Let me reiterate... PURE SPECULATION on my part....

The other thing I learned was this... when they were showing the crowds in Boston waiting for Romney to come out and speak, I noticed that seriously... there was not one single non-white, everyday looking person in that crowd.  Seriously.... And I couldn't help that when I saw that but to think, "that isn't  America."

Then they showed the crowds in Chicago... I think that was more realistic and if I were given the choice of  a place to be last night between the two, I would have definitely chosen Chicago.

Of course all of my observations could be way off base.  I am not a political analyst, not by a long shot.

It is over... the market is adjusting and I am sure that will be blamed on the current administration as well.   But as one trader said, "If you didn't think that President Obama had a better than average chance of winning then you shouldn't be handling anyone's money anyway."

Tuesday Track - WooHoo!

Great workout tonight at the track.... The first three went very well then I fought like hell to hang on the last three 800's and pulled it off.

One mile warm up, 6 x 800m with 200m RBI and then a one mile cool down. 3:13, 3:11, 3:14, 3:13, 3:15, 3:12.  All 3:15 or faster which is a first.

Last night I conducted the great heart rate monitor experiment in my sleep.  I learned that sleeping my heart rate can go as low as 43 beats per minutes.  Pretty cool I guess.  My average for the night was 50 bpm.

I still have not seen the results for the Canya Canyon 6K yet... I know that  I have a  new PR by about five and half minutes but I don't know the exact numbers as my Garmin software crapped itself when I was downloading that data.

Fall Series IV this weekend then one more week of track work after that before my race in MD.  After today's workout I think it will be close there rather or not I get a PR or not but I know that I am definitely moving in the right direction.  When I started doing 800m, repeats on Sept 11, my times were as follows... 3:11, 3:23,3:22,3:21,3:25,3:18, and that was with a 400m RBI.  So the numbers are definitely improving!

Ready for the election to be over.  And in the spirit of the campaign I will leave you with this...

Honey I Blew Up the Blog

Holy crap!  My blog has never had so many hits as it did yesterday which tells me that people are WAY more interested in other stuff than my running numbers, misadventures and whatnot.  I guess that is a good thing.

Ran Red Mountain last night.  It was fun.  My legs were mostly recovered from the weekend.  It was really cold starting out but the temps on top were a lot more comfortable.  It was definitely colder down in Manitou when we finished.

I did register for Leadman Sunday night/Monday morning. I am excited and it is sort of nice to know what my race schedule is next summer. 

Track tonight... It's Tuesday!

Will it really be over tomorrow?

Finally tomorrow is election day and I can not wait.  I have been holding my breath for weeks now it seems waiting for it.  I am excited to vote as usual and I am interested in seeing the results but more than that I just hope that it ends and this country returns to some sense of sanity and quickly.

I have been a life-long Republican.  A child of Reagan if you will.  I was raised on the ideals of blood and guts and it being my duty to defend this country to my last.  I will say that never before in my life have I been more ashamed of the party as I am now and ashamed of America in turn.

But it is on both sides, this extreme polarization, it is crazy! There is no common sense anymore.  There is no middle ground.  Either you are a gun toting, right to life, gay-hating, racist, angry, god-worshiping white person, or you are a dirty, lazy, dependent on handouts, family-value-erroding, way-too-tolerant, PBS watching, baby-killing/pro-choice pussy.

I hope that once this election is over that everyone can just drop it and get on with the healing of this nation as Americans and not an us vs. them kind of deal anymore.  And when I say us vs. them, it is in the context of, "I have seen the enemy and it is us."

I was never a fan of the current administration but I support it.  Personally I think that if given a chance for a second term that President Obama could possibly go down as one of the greatest presidents of all times after Ronald Reagan of course.  Is the executive branch infallable?  No.  But I do appreciate having a president that I can trust, is not just the mouth piece for corporations and other backers, does not sully our lives with tales of stained blue dresses and who just seems human.  The president has not invaded countries looking for WMD's that just seem to disappear nor does he sit idly when we can strike and have a tactical or strategic advantage against those who would do us harm.

Not to mention the fact that President Obama has publicly denounced the Kardashian's and refuses to allow them to air on his family TV.   That deserves my vote!

What I fear... tomorrow will not be the end.  Due to issues in Florida (cause they can't ever get an election right) issues with mail in ballots and problems with people impacted by Sandy to get to the polls it may take weeks or months for the election to finally sort itself out.  What can happen in those months especially with all of the frustration, anger and malicious attitudes between everyday Americans now?  This country needs to begin healing and it needs to begin it yesterday.

I will say that the one saving grace to the 2012 election may just be this... given the attitudes, political climate and just general behavior and downward trend of this country's standards, morals and ethics as a whole, unless things change and change quickly this could very well be our last non-violent, bloodless election in history.

As I told Melissa yesterday and I believe this to be true and part of the problem of this nation is that it way to easy for people to just believe in things than to think for themselves and use reason and to form their own thoughts and opinions. Extremism in either direction has always scared the hell out of me and anymore that fear is more and more present in my life.

Just one more day... I hope.

My fate is sealed... better start training!

Now things get real around here... Eight months until the first race.   Heck yeah!

Dear Andy Wooten,

This email confirms your registration for the Leadman/Leadwoman, submitted on Nov 5, 2012 at 12:15:38AM MST. 

Thursday Track

Had a good day today... King Chef for lunch but more of that later...

Since it worked out so well last week I decided to do 400's again tonight.  One mile warmup, 10x400m with 200m RBI then a one mile cool down.  87, 83, 86, 88, 89, 87, 90, 88, 89, 87.   Not too bad really.  I felt the past two days tonight for certain but really conditions could not have been better tonight.  The breeze did kick up some and that was the 400m where I hit the 90.

Anyway.... back to Kings Chef... it made a second appearance on my first cool down lap after the 400's were done... guess I am  back to racing weight now!

Started watching Red vs. Blue on the Kindle the other night and it is just hilarious.  Maybe you have to be a geek to get it, I don't know.  Here is the first "episode" and a warning, there is coarse language.

And there goes October.

Wow... I flipped the calendar over today and was greeted by the most beautiful pitbull puppy ever... well after Asia of course.  It is now November. Holy Crap.

For those who like to constantly ride my ass about running too much and not taking any time off please allow me to submit October's humble numbers.  I ran 148 miles and I biked, 92.  That's it!  And to be clear, I don't expect the numbers to rise much higher for November.

After that, I have no clue as to what circle of hell regarding training volume and intensity I will be in but I am sure it will epic.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I ran up N. Cheyenne Canyon during the day as I took half the day off.  It was nice to do that run again and not have to worry about it getting dark and it was really warm out.  I tried to run it rather conservative but push a little at the same time.  4.12 miles from the bottom to the top of the Columbine Trail and my splits per mile were 11:41, 15:23, 11:25 and 11:57.  Note: The second mile has the most ridiculous elevation gain of all of the miles (600 feet) and the last mile is actually 1.12 miles or so...  Anyway, I ran it just three minutes slower than my race time two years ago and that was just a day after a tough track workout.  I expect that I will do okay this weekend in the Canyon Race.  Still nothing great but decent.

After all, my goal race is now three weeks away.  It feels sort of dorky to be telling people that I am training for a 5K but there it is.  JT has been great in giving me pointers the past few weeks and also on how to handle the next three.  It was his idea to use the Canya Canyon and the FS IV races as opportunities to go out "stupid fast" and blow up and just make them hard speed workouts.   I still have to be believe that unless my 800 times come down a bit more the next two weeks a PR is going to be damned hard to come by unless I get that significant of a boost from the lower altitude and the fast/reasonably flat course.  I mean crap... I ran an 18:49 last year and I was the 36th Men's finisher but also 3rd in my age group... talk about a tough crowd.

The speed work this fall has been tough but fun in a way.  It all makes me tired but a different kind of tired than I am used to.  Speed work makes me weight lifting or "bodybuilding" tired.  Where you are absolutely forced to sleep and lay in bed until the body is really awake on it's own and can get up by itself.  You know, having to wait until you are naturally awake?  It is that kind of  tired and requires that kind of sleep and rest for adequate recovery.

Oh, and on recovery, I can say that FINALLY I think that last week, 9.5 weeks post LT100 I am finally 100% back.  I wonder if my little 50K  jaunt with Ben back in September hurt or  helped my cause?

Lastly... we went up to Boulder last night for Halloween and to visit friends.  It was a fun time.  We wondered around the Pearl Street Mall a bit... talk about a show, and wandered into this imported foods shop.  I only have one question....  WTF is this stuff????

What is it and should it really even go into a microwave???

Happy November.