Bay to Breakers 2010

In May I ran my first "official" race: Bay 2 Breakers!
The annual race travel 12k (7.3 mi) from one end of San Francisco (the bay) to the other (the breaking ocean waves). In 2009, on a whim, I decided to walk the course which was my first long distance walk/run exercise in 5 years and my first large race experience. Considering I prepped in no way I am surprised that I didn't collapse within the first few miles.

After a year of running for fun I decided to do the race "officially" (meaning I paid money and got a race number). I put on my trusty Five Finger shoes and ran my heart out, then as a bonus got my picture taken:



When I crossed the finish line my time was texted to me: 1:16:00! I ran over 7 miles in about 75 minutes! A few items to note:

1. My 2009 time was 2:15 which means I knocked an hour off of my (unfit) time; awesome!
2. While my overall average mile for the race is just over 10 minutes in execution it was even faster. I underestimate how large 80,000 people really is (see below) and spent the first 3 miles running 11-12 minute miles as I tried to pass the slower people in front of me. By the 4th mile I was running with people traveling the same pace as me. So to average an overall 10 minute mile I likely ran 8:30 miles for the last half of the race! And 8:30 for a mile used to be my "fast single mile" speed, not my pace speed!
   
3. The Five Finger shoes feel amazing, but they pretty much are like running barefoot. And running barefoot on street concrete for over an hour does not feel good. I normally run my 5ks on dirt paths, my heels were not prepared for this race. Luckily, the last 2 miles were in Golden Gate Park and I did a lot of "off road" running.
   
4. Any food consumed after running for 75 minutes tastes like the best food ever. They gave out free yogurt at the end of the race and it was like manna from heaven. I bought it at grocery store later and it tasted like... plain yogurt.
5. Whoever decided to set up the bus stop (to get back to the start line) almost 2 miles from the finish line needs to be shot.
   
6. At 5:30 AM on race day I had everything ready to go (cell phone, water bottle, running clothes, sun screen, race info, etc). EXCEPT: I didn't realize the racing bib did not come with an adhesive. I always assumed they had sticky backs, but you actually use a clothes pin to attach them. Seeing as I am a guy (ie: I don't sew) I had no way to attach the bib the day of the race (I was out of tape too). Luckily, my first aid kit provided a solution: band-aids! I'm not sure why I needed 30 band-aids in my first aid kit, but now I only have 25...
7. Sports photos are a racket. The company offered printed photos for $20+ but if I wanted digital copies they cost over $50. Most. expensive. blog post. ever!
   

(I'm that white dot 354th from front about about 24th from the right)

Dinosaurs at the desk

I work at a very creative company. We recently expanded and added cubicles (gasp!) to the expansion. Soon after, the CEO was walking through the expansion and despite all the cool posters, colorful wall paintings, hammocks, and big screen TVs playing animated movies he felt that the office looked a little too "corporate". So the company offered each employee a budget to decorate their desks to match their personal style.

I, of course, chose dinosaurs.

(Although, considering how long it took me to find them, the chocobos did remain among my decorations. And Yoshi is also a dinosaur so he stuck around.)

The little orange Spinosaurus was given to me by my oldest daughter for Father's day. She didn't even know I was collecting dinosaurs, she just went to the toy store and thought I would love that toy.

(more photos below)

April with Daddy pt 5

After Easter I cooked one of my special meals for the kids. While the main dish was enjoyed, it was the fruit smoothie that really made the girls go wild. By the end of the meal their faces were covered with smoothie, to the point that Raeleigh mentioned that she "looked like a clown".

DK in Love (guitar)

Yay, another guitar recording!


Like my last piece, this arrangement of a classic video game theme, Donkey Kong, is written by kabukibear. If you don't remember the "theme" of the Donkey Kong arcade game don't worry because it is actually only 5 notes long (and played at the beginning of my video) and turns fairly annoying by the 10th time it plays.

I love Justin's arrangement of this, he added a true melody to the piece and ran with it. The first time I heard it I knew I wanted to play it, and boy was it a struggle. The piece uses a lot off pull offs (playing the string by pulling off of it with the left hand instead of picking the string with the right) and I had trouble learning this at first. After I was able to "play" each note, I listened to my performance and realized the actual DK part of piece was completely lost, the 5 note rhythm was just background garble. After more practice and lots of focus on my pull off techniques I finally got my performance where it is today and am very happy with this piece.

I am bummed it took me 8 months to finally record it but it was worth waiting for the better quality. Previous recordings were done with my smaller digital camera which doesn't have the best sound quality. While I filmed this one with DSLR HD camera, the audio was recorded separately with a better mic that we finally got at work. It isn't pro quality, but its an improvement over my previous recordings. Plus I got to show off a few of my desk decorations in the process! And I finally found a use for my footage from GDC of Steve Wiebe playing Donkey Kong.

I have another piece that I have been working on for years that is about ready to be recorded, hopefully there won't be another 4 month gap between that recording and this one...

Fireworks: The silent killer

Happy Fourth of July everyone! This year I decided to stay in the East Bay for fireworks instead of going to Diablo Valley. I took my trusty camera and was eager to get great photos. Then the obvious happened: we had fog ("Fog in San Francisco? You don't say!"). The fog was low enough that the fireworks exploded about half way into it, so you could see just the bottom of the explosion. It was an interesting effect that lost its luster pretty quick. I also learned that I really need a zoom lens for fireworks, the prime lens is not really needed since I am leaving the shutter open for a long period of time anyways (prime lens let in a lot of light but can't zoom).

Beyond that, it was an enjoyable 4th!

(thank you to The Onion for the great title)

Why work in games?

Another of my articles has been released:
http://www.animationmentor.com/newsletter/0610/feature_special.html
It is amazing how much has changed over the past 15 years in both the game and CG animated movie industries. Today's video game version of Toy Story 3 likely uses more advanced models and has more polygons than the original movie did in 1995 (and that took 13 hours to render each frame, unlike games which render 60 frames a second). Read on!

This is also a continuation of my first article based on my time at GDC. I had a final game article to finish the trilogy as well, but its going on the backburner as we ramp up for Siggraph!

Vibram Five Fingers update

I bought the Vibram Five Fingers shoes in April and mentioned I would update this blog with my thoughts. Well, after nearly 3 months of use I can say these shoes are one of the best health purchases I've ever made! In those 3 months my runs have improved tremendously thanks to the way the shoes force me to change my stride. Prior to buying the shoes my best sprint mile time was 7:49, today I ran the same trail in 6:51!

Granted, running a few times a week would improve my speed regardless of what shoe I wore, but the day I bought the shoes my best mile went from 7:49 to 7:30 and the 7:30 mile wasn't even a sprint. Suddenly I realize how bad my form was when I wore tennis shoes and how much energy I wasted with that form. By landing on my toes first (as shown in the videos in my previous post) not only do my knees feel better but I am able to move my feet faster and cover more distance with less effort. And I love the way the shoes feel. Now I find myself running off the paths as much as possible just to feel each new texture. I've thought about actually running barefoot (no shoe at all) but after finding thorns and glass over 1/4 inch long stuck on the bottom of the Vibrams I've come to appreciate at how much they protect my foot and how running barefoot in my neighborhood could end in disaster.

For those of you who also recently bought the Vibrams, I highly recommend reading Born to Run. The book is absolutely fascinating and talksabout the Five Fingers along with a super race against the world's fastest long distance runners and also how the human body evolved to run differently than every other animal (and why the Neanderthals died out due to their lack of running ability).

Other milestones that have occured during the last 3 months since buying the shoes:

I ran my first 12k (7 miles) in 1 hr 16 minutes.
My long distance pace went from 9:30 to 8:30 per mile
My 5k went from 29:40 to 26:45
My regular mile pace (ie, I don't feel like I am dying after running 1 mile) went from 8:30 to 7:30
And my sprint mile went from 7:49 to 6:51
And 1/2 mile sprint is now 3:10

My only complaint is that the shoe is so thin and skin tight that there is no place to put my Nike+ pedometer so that it accurately measures my speed. I have to recalibrate it each mile because the force of each foot impact changes the pressure on the pedometer and it can't get an accurate read (previously the tennis shoe absorbed the impact so the pressure was constant).

I'm running a 1/2 Marathon at Disneyland this fall, hopefully by then my speeds will be even better. And all of this thanks to a piece of rubber loosely attached to my foot.

Building a single-person boat out of cardboard...

Every year our company completes a team building event which varies from being practical (cook-offs in the kitchen featured in Top Chef), to techy (geocaching event in Tilden park), to the downright geeky (scavenger hunt in downtown Berkeley where, among other thing, we found actors in various stores dressed as comic book heroes). This year's event takes the cake for being the most creative: we designed, built, and launched single-person boats made out of cardboard.

Each team of four had to design a boat that would ferry a single person across a lake and we could only use the materials provided at a store for a small price (or so we thought, the rules were left intentionally vague). We then built the boats, decorated them, pitched them to the "client" (who was determining which one to mass produce), and finally tested each one in a lake.

Some teams spent time planning their boats before buying the supplies. Unfortunately for them, other conniving teams (*innocent eye roll*) bought all the supplies first and held monopolies over valuable resources such as tape. Those teams also began scavenging the park for extra flotation assistance, with recycled plastic bottles conveniently left over from our picnic working quite well in assisting the pontoons. Once the boats were built, flags designed, and hulls decorated each team made a hilarious sales pitch and showed off their designs (a few teams scrambled to find more resources to finish their boats while others pitched).

Finally we trekked to the lake and selected one lucky anchor..er, volunteer from each team to sit in the boats and row across the lake. Some boats actually floated quite well (especially the winning pontoon with sealed plastic bottles inside).

Others... did not.

Overall we had blast, and we were surprised at how some of the "sure-thing" boats quickly sank while other "doomed" boats made the entire voyage unscathed (except for the nerves of the expecting-to-be-drenched passenger). I don't know how we are going to top this next year, but word is that it may involve building hang gliders...

Click the link below to see all photos from the event (including the delightful picnic prior to the boat building)

April with Daddy pt 4

My visit in April coincided with Easter which is always fun to experience with toddlers. The girls dressed up, searched for eggs, then had photo time with daddy!

Also, carrying an flowery Easter basket really accentuates my outfits. Will have to remember that for future dates (or not)

Catch up!

I have a month's worth of posts sitting in my pending section. In the past I would back date them to post on the day they were created, but with so many now it is probably better to just post them as today's date. Over the next 2 weeks there will be posts covering May and the beginning of June. It has been a crazy 6 weeks!