Hope you had a good 4th of July holiday. I certainly did.

Letsee.... I got alot of mileage out of Sim City 4, with the Rush Hour expansion. I spent part of the holiday being bored, going from game to book to tv to game and not really finding anything that was holding my attention. I am going to reread the Belgariad by David Eddings. I read them for the first time when I was in like 9th grade I guess. I havent been able to ready anything that's not an RPG book or a computer game manual in ages, so it'll be nice to get into these fun books. Randomly/ramblingly, I find that I just cant really get into Civilization 4. Its a beautiful game, but it's just not catching hold of me the way all of the previous Civ games have.

We saw Superman last week and I enjoyed it alot. Kevin Spacey rocks, and I was really excited about seeing him in it, and he did a fine job, but everyone else in the movie did a fine job as well. Worth seeing.

The Firecracker 5k was on the 3rd. The whole gang showed up and we ran. It was hot as hell. Race started at 7:30. I made really good speed for the first mile, doing it in (according to a fellow with a stopwatch at the 1st mile marker) about 7 and a half minutes. About halfway into the second mile though, it started getting tough. By 2.5 I was really really hoping to see the finish line, and I was thinking unpleasant thoughts about the marathon at the end of this year. It seemed to me, while running it, that my legs were no problem. I felt like I could have maybe gone a little faster, and run longer.. its the breathing that is what slows me down. By 2.5 or 3 miles I was sucking some serious wind. I rounded the corner and saw the finish line. I drew what I had left and pushed hard, finishing strong. 25:22. Man it was hot. I've certainly seen hotter days, and probably run in hotter weather, but it was muggy, the air was kinda still, and it was 7:30, so the heat of the day still hung in the air. People along the route had turned their sprinklers on into the street, which was nice. After crossing the finish line, I grabbed a cup of water and moved around all of the people and gear so that I could stand along the side, just inside of the finish area, and cheer other runners on as they came across the finish line. I saw and Beth come through, they made it 34:37 and 34:14 respectively. I somehow missed Krissi and coming across, but they joined us on the sideline as well. They both made it in 39:52. John made it in 45:02.

The 1st place was 15:26.

There is a fellow that we've seen at a couple of 5k's. He's a tall, middle aged black man who runs like a gazelle. At the Firecracker and at the Susan G. Komen 5k we saw him, in each case he finishes, then runs back along the race shouting encouragement to the other runners. He is amazing.

Here are the results.

So.. I need to work on cardio and breathing.