There has been a long silence with a purpose. I made the assumption that nobody wanted to hear anything negative such as:
- Marathon training turned into hell.
- I became plagued with ankle injuries due to totally ignoring my body and adding miles way too fast.
- El Edmonds Castillo has been nothing but a pit of stress for the last few months and construction has been moving along at a snails pace.
- The construction delays are going to cost me a fortune due to being forced to get an extension on the construction loan.
- The beautiful water feature that we spent a ton of money on has to be ripped out because of an obscure code that an over zealous inspector was aware of.
- My business lost more money in the first quarter of 2009 than it made the entire year of 2008.
- Finding a steady load of projects has been unbelievably challenging.
1.) I had decided to bail on the Vancouver Marathon but then they gave me the opportunity to change events so I decided to go ahead and run the half marathon instead of the full. It was a good move.
After I blew up the tendon in my ankle I finally wised up and started working on healing instead of training. I began a routine of cycling to give the tendon a break from the stress and mixed in some very short runs just to keep the muscle memory. About a week before the Half I did a test run of about 6 miles that went very well. I could tell the tendon still needed some time to heal but I also felt that I could do the 13.1 miles without hurting anything as long as I ran conservatively. I spent that last week doing some very short runs to keep the muscles loose and also give the muscles a chance to fully recover from some of the heavier workouts from the previous week. By Saturday I was feeling rested and really wanted to run.
Sue and I drove up to Vancouver on Saturday and got a most excellent room at the Pan Pacific. We had to walk all the way across town to pick up my race packet and it felt good to be out stretching the legs. Vancouver was beautiful, as usual, and we spent some time visiting shops along the way. After I picked up my race packet we headed back to the water front to grab a bite to eat. We ended up in the Gastown region and grabbed dinner at the Steamworks Brewpub. They have excellent food and even more excellent beer. If you are ever in Vancouver be sure and look the place up.
I got a good night's sleep in the ultra comfortable bed in our hotel room and awoke at the ungodly hour of 5AM to start my preparation for the 7AM start. I really do wish they would start these races a little later, even 8 would be more realistic. Oh well, I got to the start area about 15 minutes before the start and worked my way through the crowd to the 2 hour pacers. I was thinking that an easy 9:00 pace would be plenty conservative and if I felt good I could pick up in the final miles. This turned out to be a mistake, not the 9:00 goal but the running with the 9:00 pace group.
As the starting gun marked the beginning of the race we slowly shuffled our way to the start.... and continued shuffling for the next half mile or so. I couldn't believe how crowded it was. I was being bumped and stepped on constantly. The first mile was done at an almost 10 minute pace and then the group stopped and walked. I said "what the hell" and walked with them, couldn't hurt. Right?
Mile 2 was only slightly better than mile 1 and was still extremely crowded and I was beginning to get a bit frustrated. At the water break at around 2.5 miles in I had enough of the extremely crowded conditions and decided to attempt to break out of it. I picked up my pace just a bit to get in front of the pace group but not so much as to put me under my 9:00 goal. I had no intention of leaving the group but just to get out of the congestion. It took a while but things did finally start to get a little better by mile 4.
My pace was picking up to more in the 8:30 range and I was feeling pretty good. I breezed through the miles between 4 and 7 stopping to walk through the water breaks just to let the heart rate drop and be sure to hydrate. At around 7.5 miles in you hit a big hill and I took advantage of that to start knocking off runners. I would pick out a runner up ahead and just focus on catching and passing them and then I would select another. I actually kept up this game all the way through the rest of the race. Pick out a shirt, focus on it, and slowly real them in.
Miles 10, 11, and 12 were done at approximately 8:00 pace and mile 13 was done at close to 7:40 pace. I was feeling real good in the final miles and felt I could have held an 8:00 pace through the whole race without much trouble. I did start having trouble with the tendon in my ankle by around mile 10 but the pain was manageable and I feel it didn't slow me down. I finished the final push through to the finish line at an all out sprint and hit my stop watch at 1:53:50 or an 8:37 average. Not bad for an old, broke guy.
The race was great, the weather was great, the city was great, and the event was great. No complaints at all!
2.) El Edmonds Castillo construction has begun to get back on track. Due to all of the delays on the interior, the contractor has been focusing on finishing up as much as possible on the exterior. The house is looking absolutely exquisite. I am continually amazed by the fact that I am going to be living in this house and still have trouble dealing with it's presence of elegance. I just never pictured myself living in a home that showed such wealth. A couple of glasses of wine on the deck looking out over the Sound will probably help me get over that!
They have finished building the retaining walls that hold up the patio and they look great. The decks have been finished using manufactured wood decking. We picked out a color that had been discontinued, saving us a lot of money on the material, and it turned out to be the perfect color for blending with the cedar and red metal siding.
Plumbing is mostly finished now and the inspector gave the contractor the Ok to start insulating which was done over the weekend. We should get the final inspection OK on the plumbing, mechanical, and framing so insulating can be finished by midweek. We should be sheet rocking by the end of the week and the rest of interior walls the following week. We are pretty excited to see things moving rapidly forward again.
3.) Business is beginning to finally pick up. All of our hard work in marketing is finally beginning to pay off with some projects. That combined with the better weather has generated work for the crews and office personnel. April's billing shows real promise and an actual profit for the first time since October. Looking at historical dat shows that this April was actually better than last April. This is a good sign and brings me hope that the remainder of the year has the possibility of being better than '08. All I have to do now is manage our receivables to the point of not totally running out of money before more money starts coming in. Much better than worrying if anymore money was even going to be coming in! I feel confidnet that things are coming back in my favor at this point.
Overall, my whole attitude is getting better. I hate to toot my own horn but I think I have dealt with an amazing stress load fairly well. I think I even have areas of my stomach that don't have oozing ulcer sores on it! Just kidding about the ulcer sores..... I don't think I have any..... yet. So everyone can rest easy and be certain that PGS will be around long into the future especially with the amazing team of employees that work there! I owe those guys a lot after this one!
Until next time,
Cheers!
Ron
