My first Great Aloha Run... (or run in general)

It's been a week since the 2011 Great Aloha Run, but unfortunately, I've only had time to blog about it now. It was my first run, and a great experience.


I was never the athletic type of person. If anything, I would go swimming or hiking--not running as a form of "exercise". However, two months ago, my friend and coworker Jennifer told us at work that we would be forming a team for the run and encouraged us to join the run. At first I was a bit hesistant knowing that I didn't exercise, much less run at all. I decided to join because I found out quite a few of my coworkers are joining as well, and a lot of them didn't run either.


A month and a half or so ago, I decided to train for the run just so I wouldn't suck the day of the run and to do my best to see I would fare with other people.
Basically, my goals were:
-Not to embarass myself and be one of those people on the run ending up needing medical assistance
-Finish the race
-Attempt to do so in two hours or less


My goal time probably didn't seem hard to a lot people, but I thought it was enough for me being that it was my first run ever and not knowing what to expect. The first time I started training for the run with my running buddy, I totally sucked. It was about 15 minutes per mile with me slowing down and walking in order to catch my breath. I ran about two to three times a week about an hour each time and slowly started to improve.


By the time the run came, I felt good about being able to do the run in two hours a less, although I've never ran eight miles at once (the closest was 5.7 miles). A few days prior to the race, I went to load up on carbs. (According to my friends, you should load up a week before the race. Then, on the day of the race, don't each too much in the morning or you get nauseous)

Picked up my packet the weekend before the run which contained my running number and a computer chip is attached to the shoes to track each person's running time. (I found the computer chip pretty interesting as it was something totally new to me. It starts timing you once you pass the start line mat and stops at the finish line mat, so that people don't all need to start at the same time to be timed accurately.)

I prepped the night before by getting everything ready so that I wouldn't have to go looking for it early in the morning. Went to buy a running belt the day before the race, uploaded songs to my mp3 player, and had a banana the night before and the morning of the race so that it would lessen the chance of me getting cramps.

On the day of the race, I was very surprised at the sheer volume of people attending the race. I knew the run was a popular one and that a lot of people attend it each year, but being there seeing the masses of people was a different thing. Once the run started, I ran with my two work friends (Jen & Donnie) and kept up with them until we passed mile 4. They ran faster than me, so after a while I just needed to catch my breath and go at my own pace. After about ten minutes on my own pace, I lost traces of them. I finished the race at my own pace, going slower than when I first began once we hit an incline. Without my friends running by me, I relied on my music, adrenaline, and those people on the side of the road to push me through the rest of the race. As I passed the second incline and saw the stadium not to far ahead, I felt some relief it would be over soon. Then as I finally saw the finish line, I sprinted towards it the last 20 seconds of my race. Surprisingly afterwards, I saw my friends in front of me. As I passed the finishing line, I saw the time was 1:48:39. However, later I was estatic to find out my official time was 1:34:15. I never thought I would've ran it so well. I think running with my friends had a lot to do with it as I pushed myself to keep up with their pace.

Note to self: Do not attempt to go to work after doing an 8 mile run. (I feel like our company were the only insane ones doing so)

The world of obsoletes...

Upon cleaning out my room and at cleaning at work due to renovation, I've found a lot of items to be obsolote. It was funny. I could still remember using some of these obsolete items like it was not that long ago. It seems that the world is moving so fast that there is so much new technology out every minute. Here's some of the stuff I found:

-Correction fluid: Or what is now know as correction tape. I'm sure correction fluid still exists, but really, who still uses them? To have to use a brush/pen to go over your mistakes, and have to wait or blow the paper til it dries before you can write on it, now just seems kind of silly. (I stole that bottle from work, though when I was cleaning out my room, I did find I still had a correction fluid pen)

-Floppy disks: That's been.... almost a decade or so ago? We sure have come far from floppy disks now. From floppy disks, we moved onto zip drives, then burning information on CDs, and now tiny USBs that can hold so much information! My coworker had made a comment that he doesn't even know if there are any computers out there that have floppy drives anymore. Well, surprisingly, I still have my old computer which my dad uses, which does have a floppy drive. Now there are even very tiny external hard drives, which makes my huge external hard drive look like a dinosaur. :(

-VHS tapes: I grew up watching all my Chinese drama on these before the days of VCD and DVDs. Do they even make anything on VHS anymore?



-Old school phone: This is actually still present and working currently in my house. My dad insists on having an old school dial phone instead of a "modern" one because he says in case the power goes out, you can still dial out. -_- This thing is loud and obnoxious. I don't even remember when was the last time someone called the landline and it was for me. Who uses these nowadays or even landlines in general (except for businesses) when there are cell phones? It led me to thinking how life even went about before when cell phones existed. I remember when cell phones weren't yet popular, I would actually use a landline, and sometimes even talk for hours at night in which my dad would start yelling that I'm holding up the phone line. Now, it's gone wireless and a phone is used more than just calling people. It's sends texts (which I think some people use this function than an actual phone), is a calendar/organizer, and has capabilities that computers have.

-Phone books (not pictured): Phones going wireless led me to thinking, does anyone even use phonebooks anymore? I know they still pass them around, but how many people actually still use them? I know Generation Y definitely doesn't. Why use a phone book when you can just search for anything and everything online and get it instantly? I think the companies should stop or reduce printing these, and save trees instead.