All sales are final, but I think they do a dick move by marking the bar code on the books with a Sharpie. So don’t buy anything you intend to give as a gift (I think it looks tacky).

It’s a little sad to see the store closing. They had some good stuff (though over the last year-plus, they drastically cut back the computer book section) and the occasional deal as a Rewards member was nice. Based on the high traffic location (corner of Broad and Chestnut), I am a little surprised that this store was selected for closing, but I imagine that the rent wasn’t cheap.

So with that in mind, I was thinking about “Eat, Sleep, Run.” Since I lack a video camera or the desire and skill to make a movie, I figured text would be easier (not to mention, faster to produce). This is mercifully short on purpose. Besides, there’s probably not much else to the book or movie other than extended scenes of the same, with flowery prose and “feelings.” Sorry to the men: I don’t blow anything up here. Would have made for one helluva run though…

Eat

Karen and I shared a wonderful steak dinner (complete with potato and vegetable!) with Caroline on Saturday night. Victoria was with her father, and missed a great meal.

After putting Caroline to bed and taking Daisy for her evening constitutional, we sat down to a bad Vin Diesel movie (is there any other kind?), Fast and Furious. Apparently, the people working on titling films at Universal were either really struggling or afraid that they’d confuse their target audience. (The Fast and the Furious 4: Electric Car probably wouldn’t sell many tickets.)

Sleep

We started the movie late and it didn’t end until 11:20. Too late for anything else, and we were both very tired. So we went to sleep. It was a good sleep, only occasionally punctuated with waking.

Run

The alarm went off at 6:45am on Sunday, since I wanted time to walk Daisy before running. Hit the snooze bar a few times, and finally got up around 7:10. Walked Daisy, dressed for running, and finally left around 7:45.

It was an OK run – about 6 miles to the stadium complex in a rectangular route. Nothing fancy or too hard; wasn’t really up for much hard running, after the steak dinner.

(And yes, I was feeling very link-happy while writing this.)

But with the recent expansion of the BSR into the largest 10 Miler in the country, some things have gotten out of hand. I would change/suggest the following:

1. The Expo. A necessary evil to get the race number and T-shirt/goodie bag. But the current set-up needs to be changed. The current space (the VIP level of Lincoln Financial Field) is too small and the layout is dreadful for those of us who would like to get in and out as fast as possible. You have to go to one end of the concourse to get your number, and then go all the way to the opposite end of the concourse for the T-shirt. I appreciate the “need” to funnel people past all the vendors, but there needs to be more space and a quicker in/out option for those of us who don’t want to browse. I went on my lunch hour with people from my office – including travel time we were gone about 2 hours.
2. The start. Getting 30,000 people to line up for a race is a logistical nightmare at best. The start corrals help, but they are way too large. Cutting the field into 3000+ people chunks doesn’t help all that much. The corrals should be shrunk, and there should be more of them. Harder to set up, but easier for racing.
3. The finish area. I haven’t had an issue with this until this year. Far too many people in the Navy Yard and getting out of there is really difficult. The main exit (a sidewalk at the entrance gate, 1/4 mile above the finish) is a choke point and foot traffic comes to a crawl if not a stop. Going around whatever that building is next to the gate is not a problem, but it should be marked as an alternate exit.
4. The participants. People, you owe it to yourselves to look over the information included in your goodie bag. It includes useful tips like where the finish is (after crossing the line, some guy asked me, “We don’t finish at the stadiums?” No dude, they were at Mile 9.) and that you should keep moving through the refreshment tent (I had some idiots stopping right in front of me because the didn’t think they’d get their bags, even though 5 feet further into the tent, where we all had to go anyway to get out, there were no people and thousands of bags).

I didn’t have much of a goal in mind for Sunday’s run, and that was further dampened by the unseasonably hot weather. The hottest BSR since my first in 2000, which was a truly awful day of running for me – I wasn’t ready for the distance or the weather. (Four months later, I ran the PDR in less time.) This time, I thought I would be better prepared, solely based on experience. Whoops.

Lots of things went wrong, from the insanely crowded subway ride to the start (my foot was cramping up because I couldn’t stand up very well) to my new watch going nutty (it’s one of those Timex tap watches; I stupidly set the sensitivity too low and it misfired repeatedly, for a total of 39 laps in a 10 mile race, so I have no idea what my splits after Mile 4 were without a lot of guessing).

Thanks to the crummy winter weather, illness, and work, I didn’t have enough time to ramp up my training to where I would have liked it to have been (only one run of 10 miles), so I was a little short on the preparation. I figured I could handle a 7:00 per mile pace. Just enough to keep myself in the second start corral. Until Mile 4, I was hovering around 7:00 per mile. I took water at almost every stop (skipping one of the two right around Mile 5), even if I didn’t really need it. And then, like most of my other on-the-fly BSR plans, it all fell apart around Mile 5. I obviously wasn’t ready for a 7:00 pace. I had to stop to walk twice: once between Miles 6 and 7 and once between Miles 7 and 8. About a block each time, just long enough to catch my breath and get it together again.

You know it’s a bad day when you think about stopping. I did a few times after Mile 6, thinking that it wouldn’t be that bad too take a left turn and head home (a little over a mile east of Broad). But I didn’t think I could have lived with the DNF due to wimping out. I finished in 1:17 and change, my slowest time in years. Not that big a deal considering I was not prepared. I’ll take this as more training and move on to other running over the summer.

I’m not as much of a Lost-creator junkie as other folks are, but I do know that they’re comic book geeks (and that’s meant in a good way). When Libby was telling Hurley that she remembered the plane crash but wasn’t really there, the first thing that I thought of was Psycho Pirate from Crisis on Infinite Earths.

What? Short explanation: in the pre-1985 DC Comics universe, there were several alternate universes (called the multiverse). The Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline crashed all these alternate Earths together into one single Earth. Psycho Pirate, who was driven insane by the events of the story (he’s last seen in the story in a straitjacket), was one of only a few people who had memories of the multiverse.

So… when Libby said that she remembered the plane crash, it’s in a similar vein. But, somehow, when she kissed Hurley, he started to remember as well. The last few episodes should be very interesting (in a try-to-wrap-your-brain-around-this kinda way).

Wynn Resorts announced that they were withdrawing from the proposed Foxwoods project in South Philly, which would be located within 500 feet of my front door. (See the stories on 6ABC, CBS3, NBC10, and the Inquirer.)

I think this is great news. And I hope it means that Foxwoods Philly is totally dead. Let them pull the license tomorrow.

I never wanted this thing nearby and I never thought it would have landed here in the first place, but I just underestimated the level of back-slapping and back-room dealing that goes on in this city. Not having it here is a good thing for me, my family, and this neighborhood.

But I found the following problems:

• Sock was a likeable slacker; Ron is a law-breaking jackass
• The kids are a Malcolm in the Middle knock-off: the oldest is a clueless goof, the middle one is in charge, and the youngest is a psychopath.

There’s just nothing to like about this show. It’s more cringe inducing than laugh inducing. I’m giving up on it.