This morning was the last race of three straight weekends and last before the Gasparilla Marathon in three weeks.  I didn’t altar my training at all this week, so I was feeling the two hill workouts and the 16 miler in between.  Luckily, the wind held off and was not a factor. Temperature was good, but pretty humid. The course was dead flat which is good and bad. Sometimes, little hills help change up which muscles are used. Course was well marked and length was spot on. The was a lot of races in the area today, so they had a pretty good turnout. Seemed mostly locals though.

Ran 18:53, placed 3rd overall and 1st in my age group. Started faster than I should have with a 5:39. Slowed to 6:07 in the second. The sides of my thigh above the knees have been bugging me during races and were burning pretty good in the third mile. Slowed way down to 6:28. Going to have to start races going out feeling like I am jogging again to get the mile splits more even.

Slow down hoser...Started too fast!!

What a pretty finishing stretch.

Legs burning, kinda glad to get this one over with.

Another first place medal for the collection!

Just capped off the day with a 10 miler to shake the legs out. Now I can feel better about taking Sunday off.

Saturday was Tommy’s big all-county band performance. The band is made up of the best Middle School band students in the county. The kids did an awesome job playing five songs during a half-hour concert. We are so proud of Tommy for what he has accomplished with the band in such a short time!!

Tommy getting ready for the performance.

Pasco All-County Band-”Quintus” from Neil Clements on Vimeo.

Pasco All-County Band – Music of “Cars” from Neil Clements on Vimeo.

Great day and race today. Took a short trip down U.S. 301 to Dade City for the the Kumquat 5K and Festival.

Sunrise driving down U.S. 301

Lining up at the start with my friend Lamonte Singletary.

Had a fantastic race. Ran the whole race at a fairly even effort. The course at Kumquat is one of the better courses. There isn’t hardly a flat spot on the course, but the hills aren’t too much that they will wipe you out. All of mile two is a slight uphill. I was shocked to see my finishing time of 18:00. I was thinking that the course was short since my Garmin only showed 2.94 miles. I measured the course at www.mapmyrun.com and the course measured out to 3.15 and the mile markers showed the same as they were on the course.  So, I am not sure what to think. I still find it hard to believe that I could pull off an 18 minute 5K. Overall, I placed 5th and was first in my age group. Next race is this Saturday in Plant City for the Strawberry Distance Challenge 5K being held at Walden Lakes.

Finishing strong and easy!

Getting picture taken with the Kumquat Queen at the awards.

One of the great things about the Kumquat race is that after, you walk across the street to enjoy the Kumquat Festival.

Mickey and Minnie Mouse plant sculpture from Epcot.

Old Pasco County Courthouse.

Emily getting a kitty cat painted on her face.

The happy finished product!

Kids getting a garage tour from Buzzie.

Kids hanging out with David Reutimann.

The kids got a major surprise when they got to have a private garage tourwith NASCAR driver David Reutimann today.

Jenny’s Grandmother did good! Before Christmas, she went to Reutimann’s garage to buy a model car for the boys. They only had one car, so she would have to come back another day. The next time she went in, she talked with Buzzie Reutimann (David’s Dad). Since she was buying two cars, Buzzie gave her a signed car and told her to bring the other one back to trade out for another signed car. Nice deal, but it got better. They kept talking and he took an interest in hearing about the kids. Told her David was going to be in town for a couple days and to bring in the kids to meet him. Sneaky as we are, we didn’t tell the kids about any of it. Before we even had a chance to tell them that we would take them into the garage, they came up with the idea to make Buzzie a thank-you card. Perfect!! We told them that we would take them in to give it to him personally, we just had to find out when a good time would be.

Jenny’s Grandmother called the shop yesterday to talk to Buzzie to see when David would be there. He wasn’t there so she left her number. She heard back from Buzzie later in the day and told her David would be in the shop and he would call her when we could take the kids in.

We met Buzzie in the office and he took us back into the garage, the kids thought that was so cool in itself. Then, they noticed that there stood David Reutimann working on a car. The kids got to talk to David for a couple minutes and Buzzie was great showing the kids their newest car and some other racing memorabilia.

A huge thank-you to the Reutimann’s for taking the time with kids. All of them are super nice, down to earth and easy to talk to. They are the kind of people that you immediatley feel comfortable around.

Its the most wonderful day of the year!! Tax refund from our friends at the U.S. Government, now there’s real stimulus we can count on! Hope everyone gets their taxes done and is lucky enough to get a nice cash infusion.

If you are doing your own taxes, I highly recommend using Tax Act software. I have used them for a few years now ever since I used Turbo Tax and got a better refund double checking with Tax Act which was free. Just go to www.taxact.com to do a free return or pay $13 for the deluxe edition that allows you to save and import returns.

I don’t ever watch the address since I don’t really want to have to waste an hour of my life listening to the President ramble on about how things are going to get better. I find it better to just wait until the next day to read about the highlights and what different people have to say about the speech whether he is full of it or not.

First off, I really like Obama and think he is trying to help. I also think that once he got into office, he found out how hard it would be to do anything he wants and got over his head.

From what I have read of last night’s address, I don’t think Obama helped his case too much. He may have the best ideas in the world, but we will never know because the actual plans get so distorted. Obama needs to start laying his plans for review to the public on his own controlled site so that the content does not get skewed by politicians and other commentators.

Obama and a lot of politicians talk about more stimulus. That’s great, but where is the money coming from? If you have to borrow money to stimulate, all that is doing is digging a larger hole. Like most all Americans and people around the world, until the Government’s house is in order, how can they possibly help others?

Like most people, we have dug our own financial hole in the past by our own doing or outside circumstances. We are just about out of it! We are so lucky that we are not facing problems like job loss that millions of others are. I can’t imagine what those people are going through.

It seems to me that one of the biggest problems facing America and the world is the price of goods has outpaced the earning potential of most people. The basic necessities of life (food, shelter, gas, etc.) has gone up so much that a lot of people are going without. Amazing, though, that the cost of luxury items like HD TVs has come down so much. How screwed up is that?

Unfortunately, in the current political climate, God could be President and nothing would happen. So, I don’t put blame on Obama. I do wish that Ron Paul would have had a chance in the Presidential election. Everything I read about him during the primaries just made sense. I would have and still would vote for him if he decides to run again in 2012.

Clearwater Pass Bridge in background

Got up nice and early this morning to go run the Clearwater Halfathon. This half-marathon is one of the more challenging races in Florida with four bridge ascents over two bridges. Except for the wind, was a perfect morning to run. Temperature started out in the 50’s and stayed cool the whole race with clouds hanging around so it didn’t get hot. I finished with a time of 1:33:50 besting my previous PR by three minutes and placed 38th overall. Average pace was 7:10. My main goal for this race was to run the distance in the planned time and pace. I had planned to pace myself at 7 minute miles and was pretty much on until miles 12 and 13 where the wind was solid and the final bridge ascent slowed me down a little. Mile 12 was run at 7:20 and mile 13 at 7:35. So, I am pretty happy that I ran as planned . Unlike other longer races, I didn’t crash and I was continually picking people off the whole race.  Didn’t get lucky enough to place in age group. I am running 5Ks the next three weeks and then the Gasparilla Marathon Feb. 28.

Welcome to the new, improved (maybe), and more the style I was wanting site. I am continually working on the site and changes will be coming quickly. With the blog style, the site will be more interactive allowing everyone to post comments and allow me to put other goodies on.