Monthly Archives: August 2008

Running long

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I’m pretty passionate about the things I do. I don’t like to start something and not finish it. Or, more precisely, I don’t like to tell others about something I am doing and then not finish it. I’ve probably discussed a few of those here such as my quest to build a new door tag decoder. I promise I will get back to that as I still see a need for one.

Anyway, I have taken on a new “hobby” and that would be running. The goal I have in mind is to run and complete my first marathon this fall. I am now a little more than midway through an 18 week training program and still going strong.

I’ve always been interested in staying in shape. I was seriously into mountain biking up until the time we had our son. Having children changes everything. For several years after he was born, I was lucky to get my bike out twice a season. I started to run on a casual basis to keep in shape. It took less time and equipment than biking. Shorts, a t-shirt and some sneakers and I was out the door and around the neighborhood for a half hour or so. I tried to go once a week giving it up when it got really hot and really cold. A couple of years ago I had some heel pain that slowed me down and made me have concerns about keeping it up as a regular thing.

Or, so I thought. Sometime last fall I decided to start planning to take on the challenge of completing a marathon in 2008. I kicked off the plan the first week of April 2008. The basis for my training has been the 18 week novice program outlined by Hal Higdon in his book Marathon: the Ultimate Training Guide. There are many books and plans to get you there. This one looked good to me so I went with it.

Prior to starting the 18 week plan, I spent about 10 weeks building my “base” level of fitness. My goal for those 10 weeks was to be conditioned enough so that week 1 of the program would not lead to my downfall. Like all weeks of the program, week 1 involved running 4 days (Tue, Wed, Thur and Sat); more often than I had ever previously run in a single week.

I started with one 3 mile run in that first week and slowly added more days through the “base” training period. At first I was always resting with an off day in between runs but slowly added running back to back days. I also gradually increased my mileage buy only once did more than 6 miles in a single run.

And, here I am today in week 12 of the 18 week program. I am still enjoying it very much and look forward to my long runs on Saturdays. Last Saturday I ran 16 miles.

Overall, it has turned out to be a large time commitment that I could have easily predicted but failed to. I am now running over 4 hours per week. Obviously, that puts a dent in the time I have to do other things like write blog entries and respond to email. My wife seems to be understanding this new obsession of mine and has not had any problems picking up the slack around the house. I can’t express how much I appreciate that.

So now the cat is out of the bag and you know what else I’ve been up to. If things keep going well I hope to post more about this endeavor as I go along.

1993 Feature Car Magazine Article Update

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So as not to neglect the 1993 Feature Cars, I have just completed an update to the 1993 Feature Car Magazine page. Anton (cougster) was kind enough to provide some scans of some Mustang Times articles for which I did not have any or had very poor ones. Actually, he had provided them more than a year ago but I failed to get them onto the page. He was kind enough to mail me a reminder after my 1992 page update. Here’s a quick summary:

I added an index at the beginning of the page similar to what I have done for the 1992 Feature Car Magazine page. I have included most of the images for the covers of each issue. The hope is that this will make it easier to spot these issues since you will know what the covers look like.

Also, I did some updates to the books section. The books I updated apply to all of the Limited Edition LX 5.0 Convertibles. I just obtained the Mustang Special Editions book. You may have seen it when I listed it in the ebay auction tracking. I finally decided that I should get a copy. I have scanned the relevant pages. I didn’t want to destroy the binding of my book so the images somewhat fade to black near the center of the book. I have also only posted thumbnails and not the fully readable images as I have been doing lately for the magazines. I used to always post scans where you couldn’t read the content because I didn’t want to get into any copyright trouble, but, I at least wanted to give a feel for the type of coverage in the magazine or book. I have relaxed that thinking somewhat but only for the older issues of the magazines. Although, many of the original scans I did still remain unreadable for this reason.

The last update I have done is a similar update with small thumbmail images for the Fox Body Recognition Guide. When reviewing the Books page I found that what I had written previously for it was out of date as I had written it before I owned a copy. It is a very useful book that I highly recommend.

1992 Feature Car Magazine Article Update

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I get a lot of great stuff from you readers in my inbox; pictures, scans and tidbits of information. I really try to get to it all but sometimes things fall through the cracks. One such thing is an overdue update to the index of 1992 Feature car related magazine articles.

If you’ve checked it out you know that I try to track articles on the 1992 feature cars on my “Literature” page. I also have a corresponding page for 1993. You can link directly to it to see the result of this update but here is a summary to make it easier to sort through:

One thing that stands out from these articles (and I have probably mentioned and/or discussed this before) is the perceived appeal to the ladies of our beloved feature cars. Not that there is anything wrong with that. In fact, I think it is a good thing. The opposite would not be as nice. I have a friend whose late father owned a 1963 Corvette. He told her that nothing attracted the attention of older men like a 1963 Corvette. Obviously, interested in the car but men nonetheless.

Mustang Illustrated seems to have pushed the feminine angle pretty hard through both indirect and direct references. It’s humorous to read through it today. In case you don’t want to link over and sort through the articles, I’ll leave you with this little gem:

Mustang Illustrated Sep 1998 text

Oh yeah, for extra credit and fun, count the errors in the paragraph. Not big on editing and fact checking that Mustangs Illustrated.

Spotted: D.A.R.E. Fox Body Mustang

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I’m always on the lookout for fox bodies. Sitings are getting fewer and farther between. Some of them make me circle back and take a closer look. This is about one of those cars.

Recently, we were looking for a different place to have dinner and I remembered a restaurant I saw in a city which I occasionally go to for work. Since we were in the area, we decided to check it out. It turned out that the given restaurant was out of business but next door at the police station I spotted this little beauty.

D.A.R.E. Mustang

I am almost entirely certain that this is the same car I saw at a car show at Mustangs Unlimited sometime in the late 90’s. The story I remember hearing then was that it was confiscated from a drug dealer and turned into the D.A.R.E. Mustang. While not a SSP Mustang LX, this GT is still pretty cool in traditional police black and white along with its white top and chrome ponies.

Today, it sits underneath the highway and like all the cars around it is covered with a considerable layer of dust. I’m glad to see that they still have it and I hope to see it out on the road again someday.