This is a tribute to one of the hardest hitting players of all time. Thoughts and prayers go out to Sean Taylor’s friends and family.

This probably should have been posted a month ago but better late than never. Amy and I went camping at Assateague Island National Seashore back in September for a long weekend. Joel, his sister Jess, and her fiance Paul joined us on Saturday night.

Despite the gail force winds and rain we were welcomed with on Friday night we had a great time. Okay, I am exaggerating a bit about the gail force winds, but it was very windy and rained for a good eight hours straight. Not exactly the ideal weather for tent camping. I should also mention that we camped at the national seashore campground on Assateague. We were on the oceanside of the campground with only sand dunes separating us from the beach. Our site was all sand so it makes things a little tricky trying to keep sand out of the tent, but if your careful its not bad. There is also a state park adjoining the national seashore, which also has a campground. It turns out that the facilities of the state park are a lot nicer than the national side. The national facilities include a single porta-john and outdoor shower for each group of 15 or so campsites. The State facilities have an actual building with indoor showers and toilets, it is a little extra a night (I think $5 or so), but very worth it in my opinion.

We spent most of the day Saturday walking around on the beach and just relaxing. We drove around the island and saw some wild ponies, most of which hang out...

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So my cousin Andy has convinced me to run a marathon. He had recently run a 10 miler and while talking with him about it, I mentioned that I would be interested in running a race with him. At the time I had been casually running a few times a week for about a month and was thinking of doing a 10K, but he suggests a marathon. I’m not one to back down from a challenge, so I run with it.

A month (more or less) later here I am writing this post. I’ve bought a new pair of shoes, mapped out a training plan, and signed up for a 10K qualifier in November. And now that I’ve officially announced my intentions on running this marathon, looks like there is no turning back. So far, training has been tough. Boy, I’ll tell you, things have definitely changed since high school. I feel like I have the legs of an 80 year old. My shins feel like they are going to crumble into dust and I’m only up to 7 miles on my long runs.

Okay, I know, enough whining about my pathetic marathon training. One thing I should mention is the application I’m using to keep track of my training progress. Its called MapMyRun, and it allows you to plot your runs on a google map interface as well as store daily training records to a personalized calendar. It has a boatload of other features too such as elevation and distance calculations of your runs; and pace, speed, and calories burned for each of your training records.

I...

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