http://results.chronotrack.com/event/results/event/event-11080?entryID=11569771&lc=en

2:45:15. I don't really care about the time so much as the fact that I never stopped running.

Apparently, "half run, half walk" is a thing people do in half-marathons. That was what most of the people around me were doing. Unfortunately, if all you're doing is running at an uncannily steady pace (only 0:07 difference in the mile pace between the first half and the second!), that means that you're passing those people a LOT. One guy seemed to be switching between running and walking every 30 seconds toward the end, and it started to feel like he was just running to catch up to me, then walking to catch his breath, then running to catch up to me. But every time he'd pass me, he'd run until he was DIRECTLY in front of me, then stop walking. It was amazingly irritating. Some other people were much more polite when we were similarly situated, and I appreciated that a lot.

I wore an awesome hat, which helped way more than I expected. It kept my head warm, but it also generated at least 9 "I love your hat" type comments, and it's silly, but those comments did way more to inspire me than all of the "good job!" comments that all the people along the way - volunteers, police officers controlling traffic, residents of neighborhoods we ran past/through, and people who just happened to be out for a jog or bike in the opposite direction - were handing out.

I felt wonderful for 11 miles. Mile 12 was rough, but mile 13 was just miserable. The backs of my knees started hurting, which I've never experienced before. The only thing keeping me running was the fact that I knew if I stopped running, I wouldn't be able to start again, and it was really important to me to run the whole way. That actually turned out to be a blessing, because as  soon as I crossed the finish line I started walking, and learned two things: 1) I was right that once I stopped running, I wasn't going to be able to start again, and 2) walking actually hurt a lot more than running at that point. My top speed for the walk back to the school bus that shuttled us to the parking lot was probably about 1.5mph.

I'm an astonishingly uncoordinated person. I find it interesting, the difference between what it's like to be around me and what uncoordinated people are like in television and film. I don't come across as clumsy because I know I'm clumsy, so I avoid situations that would make it obvious how clumsy I am.

I was frustrated by not being able to juggle, so I spent a week practicing alone in my bedroom, four or more hours a night, until I could juggle. Badly. My juggling ability at the end of that week was comparable to what some people can manage when they're shown how to juggle for the first time.

I keep a super-bounce ball at my desk. When I'm waiting for something, I have a habit of bouncing it off the ground and catching it. Even that, I can only do reliably 10 or so times before it goes careening off and bounces off one of my cow orkers. I'm sure they appreciate that. But generally, I just stay away from things that will expose how bad I am at everything that requires me to put a thing in the right place at the right time.

The big exception is cooking. There are a lot of things you can cook that don't require anything except not cutting yourself. Vegetarian "chili" is easy, especially if you convince yourself that you like coarsely chopped vegetables. Many sauces can be accomplished through simple determination. Even a roux is more about knowing how to recover from problems than physical technique. And pastries are simply, obviously, totally beyond my reach. I once determined that I would make a puff pastry; I spent four hours before tearfully admitting defeat.

That, I hope, is enough context to explain why I am so amazingly pleased with myself that I made fettucine alfredo, starting with flour, eggs, butter, and parmigiano reggiano, and sourdough bread, starting with my own starter, flour, water, and commercial yeast (my starter doesn't have enough loft on its own, and screw those people who claim that sourdough isn't sourdough if you use commercial yeast). I know that neither of those tasks sound like something that actually requires any coordination at all, but believe me, I've found so many ways to manage to mess up both from-scratch pasta AND from-scratch bread, and my success has mostly come from finding ways to produce both that avoid a reliance on my coordination entirely. For example, the first time I actually touch my bread dough with my fingers is when I'm flouring it just before it rises. All the mixing and kneading is done by a machine. I can't even enumerate all the ways this prevents me from giving up in tears.

My wife's work sponsors a 5K every year. In years past, we've walked the 5K while pushing our son in a stroller. This year, though, since I've been running, my wife asked if I wanted to run it. And I said that would be cool. Then this morning, our son woke up with a fever, and my wife offered to stay home and snooze with him while I ran the 5K. Awesome!

This was my first time ever running in a race. When we walk the 5K, we generally finish almost entirely last, scant minutes before they deflate the finish line. One year, we were beaten by an octogenarian who was also walking. That's a very comfortable way to complete a 5K; our biggest problem has been managing a one- or two-year old who doesn't want to stay in the stroller.

This time, though, I maintained a steady 6 mph pace through the entire 5K, except when I paused to tie my shoes (forgot to double knot them, oops) and at the very end when I figured I might as well give it everything I had for the last .107 miles. And I learned that maintaining a steady pace through an entire 5K is a little depressing, because you spend most of the race passing people who started out too fast. And of course, half the people you pass immediately start running a bit faster, so now you simultaneously feel sorry for them and wish you didn't have to listen to them panting right behind you.

The official timing has me at 30:55, which is a bit shy of my goal of 30:00, but well within my secondary goal of "no more than twice as long as the first-place finisher." I also finished slightly faster than one dude who was somehow walking almost as fast as I was running, and every six-year old who competed. Two of the three seven-year olds beat me, though.

Today, for the first time, I ran while ill. It's just a minor cold, and the run was just a slow 4 miles. But: I ran faster and farther than I could have at the beginning of the year, or really at any point in my life. And: it's really the first time in my life that I've done exercise solely for the sake of exercise while I was ill. So that's a major accomplishment.

I'm very picky about beer. Through some experimentation, I've learned that the taste I don't like in beer comes from the hops. The hoppier the beer, the less I will enjoy drinking it. Apparently, there's a way to measure how much I will hate the taste of a beer, and it's called IBU. My three favorite beers are 19, 20, and 24, and all are malty, which apparently cancels out the IBUs somewhat.

But there's another thing about beer that makes me even more finicky, and that's the fact that it gives me a stomachache. There's a number for that, too, and it's ABV. The higher the alcohol content, the less likely it is to give me a stomachache. Only applies to beer! I can drink 5% ABV cider or Smirnoff Ice all night long, but one 5% ABV beer and I'll have a sour stomach for an hour. 7% seems to be the minimum for me to be able to drink a beer. How does this make a difference? How does  such a small amount make a difference? I don't know - and I'm rather unwilling to find out. Mostly, when I do drink, I just avoid beer.

All this is just to explain how there came to be a 4-year-old bottle of Maudite (http://www.unibroue.com/en/beers/17/product) in my possession. I was about to throw it out, when I figured I should check the Unibroue site to find out how long it would keep. Unibroue says: "Like good wine, Unibroue’s fine beers have flavors that develop with age." They suggest that it can age up to 8 years. So I kept it around. And then kept it around some more, never finding the right moment to open up what had suddenly become a potential treasure.

4 years later, I realized that a dream deferred is a dream denied, and now I am having far and away the best glass of beer I've enjoyed in my life. Unibroue, again: "Over time they become smoother, sometimes revealing notes of honey and candied fruit and developing a more assertive and lasting flavor." Yes, that seems about right. It's a 750mL bottle, and I'm enjoying half of it in a glass right now; I've corked it and put the rest in the fridge. And then it will be all gone. On the plus side, my habit of buying beer and not drinking it means that I have a 3-year-old bottle of Maudite maturing right now; only 5 more years and I can see how that one turns out!

I've been running for fitness and fun, lately. At the beginning of November, I plan to attempt a half-marathon (13.1 miles.) I'm feeling pretty good about my chances of completing it before they close the course (3:30 hours).

Things I am no longer worried about:

• Being mechanically able to run 13.1 miles. I ran 6 miles yesterday, and 7 today. It hurts a lot now, but I figure if my joints and soles can take it over the course of 26 hours, they'll do fine over the course of 4 hours.

Things I'm still freaking out about:

• Being aerobically able to run 13.1 miles. I've never run more than 8 miles at once, and it seems silly to run a half-marathon in training to find out if I can complete a half-marathon.
• How hilly the course will be. I went a different way, this morning's run, and ended up on a much hillier road than normal. (Somehow, it escaped my attention that a road named "Hillcrest" would actually be hilly.)
• How cold it will be. This morning and last, it was 55F, and I did fine with it, but much colder than that and I'll have to rethink my wardrobe.
• Injuring myself sometime in the next two weeks. Every time I get any twinge of anything in my shins, I freak out about shin splints. I had them once when I was in high school, and I'm terrified of getting them again. I'm doing a good job of not overtraining, but I can't help but feel like I'm betraying myself when I force myself back to bed at 5am because today is a rest day and I'm going to rest if it kills me.
• Pooping. I spent this morning reading "I pooped myself while running" horror stories, and didn't really learn anything except oh my god that's horrifying.