U2

I went to U2 with Katy, Paul, Nick & Becca, Josh & Laura and Laura's sister, Christen. Bob & Deb were also there but in a different section.

I still haven't been to many concerts in my life but this one was phenomenal. U2 played for about 2 hours and 15 minutes, well worth my two $65 tickets. In fact, why didn't we pay more and sit closer?

Twin Cities 10 Mile v. 2010

Well, Twin Cities 10 Mile v. 2010 went off without a hitch Sunday morning.

Katy and I were up and heading to Minneapolis at 6:00am with the start time coming at 7:09am. It was chilly, about 40 degrees, but clear with a high of about 60 degrees expected. We arrived downtown and I just sat in the car near the start line for a half hour or so before heading into the dome, using the bathroom before running a half-mile warm up before the start. By the start of the race it was getting lighter and I was ready to race in my tights, sleeveless shirt, arm sleeves, gloves, watch and hat; and of course a pair of socks, my silicone or rubber toe caps and a new pair of Nike Lunarglide +2's.














As always the first couple miles of competition requires some mental fortitude to hold back and be sure you're not breaking the bank so mile one and two were 6:09 and 6:14.

I must have been concerned about pace at that point as I slowed to a 6:28 for mile three, though there was a small hill at that point. I regained some pace and tempo going through four miles in 25:03, running 6:14.

Now, miles five, six and seven; I wish I could have those back. I do remember feeling a bit tired but more so, I think I wondered about my ability there. I thought to myself "this is only half way, I'm kind of tired, let's stay consistent and be conservative." Well, I sure was tired and too conservative. On the flip side I was pretty consistent as those miles were 6:32, 6:38 and 6:29. Sheesh. That was coming off of Cretin Avenue and onto Summit Avenue where there is a long gradual hill; but I should have kept moving better.

At that point, I knew I had three miles left, processed that as just at 5K race and thought about how short that really was. I clicked off a 6:12 and 6:19 while maintaining some contact with a couple people who were moving pretty well. I pushed but I didn't over exert myself. Maybe I should have pushed just a little bit more in those two miles. I went through eight miles in 50:53, was at nine miles at 57:12.

Mile 10 was 5:39 and my best mile of the morning though I didn't go crazy at any one point during that mile. I kept accelerating as steadily as I could, clicking off each tenth of a mile while waiting for the Cathedral so I could see Katy, Bob and Deb and Laura.

So, Twin Cities 10 Mile v. 2010 had me finish in 1:03:16.

That's good for 90th out of 7017 runners. I was 32nd of 458 in the 22-29 age group and 86th out of 2708 males.

I was satisfied, but as always thought there could have been more in the tank with a drop in time. I am happy with staying consistent in time for the last two years and always hope for more next year.





































This is me going by the Cathedral with a quarter mile left.














Josh finished in 1:24:33, 8:28 pace for the TC 10. Good job Josh! (We were both just a few seconds slower this year vs. last year. Darn. We'll do better next year.)













Just us. :) Too bad this was the best shot of us. We must improve on that.













And Segways!! I really wanted to see who brought these to the course so I could go ride up and down the course. Right Eric, Dad and Katy? That would be awesome!

Twin Cities 10 Mile v. 2010

TWIN CITIES IN MOTION

Twin Cities Marathon

Well, tomorrow morning is the Twin Cities 10 Mile. And I'm finally nervous. I would like to do sub-60 minutes but that's not going to happen judging my mileage and workouts.

*It appears that you can follow me run online now too via the website or texting. This link will take you there...

I've put in a decent amount of miles over the summer without getting a great deal ahead with workouts. So, decent mileage but a lack of workouts and even lack of mileage lately, doesn't give me too much confidence with the morning run. Not that I ever really have a huge amount of confidence. (Can't get a job, not a great (fast) decision maker, never really stand for what I believe or want...)

So, tomorrow morning might be a challenge. I'm putting alot of pressure on myself to get back to 1:02:54 like I did last year but at the same time I'm not sure that's going to happen. I'd love for it to happen though. Somehow, I've got to find a spot in my mind, maybe just for a few hours where I'm confident and feel good for the run.

I'm aiming for 1:05:00 this year with the chances of hitting that. Last year I had 1:08:00 in my head so we will see how that matters. I'm not sure that I'll be able to do 1:03 this year but I didn't think I would do that last year.

Anyway, last year I ran 63 minutes on a goal of 68 minutes. This year I'd like to hit 65 minutes on a goal of 65 minutes. I'll have to feel it out as they miles come, it's just that I haven't been all that confident with sub 6:45 pace nor has my stomach been cooperating with me for quite some time on longer or more workout type days.

Who else do I know that's running...

Josh, Nick, Rachel Karel in the 10 mile.

Dan Greeno, Brian Anderson, Amanda Ericson all in the marathon.

We'll see how it goes...this sappy blog is over. Maybe I will call this blog just "for my records." (Right Em?)

Christmas 2009

Our Christmas Eve picture.

Merry Christmas!

Yesterday I had to work 12-6:30 and close down the store. Oh what fun, to be there when business was slow and the only customers who were in the store were the ones who just wanted to prevent you from doing something that evening.

Katy and I finally got to Bob and Deb's having some fun driving in the snow on the way there. I got all the way there, through slippery roads, snow up to our bumper and ended up getting stuck right in front of there house as I was turning around trying to stay completely out of the middle of the road.

We hung out for a little bit before dinner. We skyped Grant and Chris with Katy's parents in Palm Springs as well as Rick and Joy and their kids in San Francisco. It was fun, for a little bit, skyping with them as we all listened to Bopa read the Christmas story and pray.

Dinner was delicious! We ate the korv we made last weekend, as well as meatballs, rice pudding, lingonberries, green beans, red mashed potatoes, crescent rolls, jell-o and cheesecake for dessert.

We opened presents and that was about all for the evening since we didn't get there until 7pm.

This morning, Katy and I, made cinnamon rolls for breakfast and I made coffee. We got ready and then we opened a few more presents-mostly from my family. We did that in our tradition-each of us going one at a time until they were all gone. Last night, we all just ripped into them at once.

We watched a little tv and relaxed before we went to Sherlock Holmes. My oh my, the movies were packed! I never even knew people went to movies on Christmas Day. I guess that's what happens when absolutely nothing else is open.

I thought Sherlock Holmes was okay, not extremely good though. I said 7 out of 10, just average. It was a good story that made you think a little bit and did a good job of revealing and filling in clues as the movie progressed but all in all it was a dark movie-literally-and the story was based on a guy who practiced magic.

We came home and Katy made ham, peas and cranberry's and we ate leftover red mashed potatoes. That was good too and I was glad to get in some ham.

Otherwise, I've just been watching basketball and football and Katy put our spices in their jars on a new magnetic thing on the wall and used our new Kitchen Aid mixer to make more banana bread.

Oh yeah, this weather. I'm sure you think it's worse here than it really is. Yeah, we got alot of snow and there were watches and warnings all over Minnesota but it was supposed to snow all night last night and all day today. Well, what happened? Yeah, I'm asking the same thing. It was really disappointing to me to have just about none of it happen! I got up last night at 3:30am to use the bathroom and looked like a little kid expecting snow on Christmas but didn't see anything falling. I got up at 8:30 and looked out the window again and I only saw a little drizzle! It was on an off for the morning and part of the afternoon-heavy snow in big flakes, rain and drizzle-but when we went to the movie and left it was all slush and rain. It was much too warm today for snow and I'm really annoyed that it didn't snow! I really wanted to have it be 25 degrees and get us a ton more snow. We probably had 10-12 inches on the ground before last night but I'd say that alot of it is melting now with the rain that's coming down now. They compared this storm to the storm of 1991, which was apparently something to talk about. But it was a major disappointment! I think this might have been one of the top three snowfalls I've seen here. I don't think this is any different or worse than what happens in New England for a nor'easter though. New England just melts faster or melts due to 38 degrees or rainy slush coming down. Here sticks because it's so cold-except not this time!

Merry Christmas again!



The new Kitchen Aid mixer in action! Thank you Mom and Dad!

U2 Tickets!

We're going to U2!

In a pretty random occurrence of events Katy and I bought u2 concert tickets for June 27th at TCF Bank Stadium.

I went to lunch with Nick who was on the internet looking at trying to buy U2 tickets. We ate a nice lunch in the Bethel dining center and I went to Turn Style to turn over some watches and old photo coasters from our wedding. I had to register in the home part of Turn Style and while I was registering a U2 song was playing on the radio. She said that they had been playing U2 all day and there must be a concert going on or something. For some reason she explained to me that she was a Gophers season ticket holder and they got an email so they could pre-sale the tickets. I said that the tickets were hard to come by as Nick was just looking for them and the website wouldn't let him buy any yet. Then she volunteered to forward me the special email that she got to pre-sale the tickets-which she did!

Later on in the evening Katy was talking about U2 and I remembered the email which we then opened and hit the link.

We ended up checking out with 4 U2 tickets! So, we're going with Nick and Becca, and I emailed it to Paul-who ordered to and Lance will come. I also emailed it to Josh who got tickets for himself and Laura! It's going to be fun!

Katy can't wait! We figured it was a semi-once in a lifetime shot at getting tickets and for a concert, for being U2 they weren't really that outrageous. It was $55 a pop with all of the fees and extras and ticketmaster garbage.

But we're excited to go to U2!


Also on the news front. Katy sliced her finger a couple weeks ago but it's getting better, though she lost some feeling in her left pointer finger. Also, her pickup cost us a little money last week, her starter decided to stop doing its' job. So we fired it and replaced it with a new one for the fair cost of $600! Are you kidding me!

TC 10 Mile Is Here

Capitol Sunshine



Post race-watching for people we know.







Laura!





Rise and shine!

Up and about at 5:15 am was the appetizer of the day! Today, was the TC 10 Mile and Marathon Events race from Minneapolis to St. Paul. You should be able to link to the course map from this link-map.

It finally stopped raining the last couple days, so it wasn't a miserable 10 mile or marathon. At the start it was about 44 degrees and fairly cloudy. It turned out to be pretty good running weather.

Nick and Becca dropped me off at about 6:05am where I just walked about for a little bit before heading to the Metrodome to relax and get ready for the run. I ended up hanging there most of the time, got in a 3:04 warm up and hit the start line. It was tough having to drop your warm ups a ways away before starting in the race. I ended up sitting there in my shorts, top, arm sleeves and gloves for fifteen minutes or so just trying to stay warm.

I said hi to a couple of people I recognized and then it was race time.

Coming off of my four miles yesterday, which was at 6:30am and cold and drizzly, I wasn't very confident. I felt pretty slow, heavy and lethargic not really the way you'd want to have a warm up the day before a big race go.

But I jumped in towards the front of the starting corral and off I went. I hit the mile split at about 6:25-6:30ish, about thirty-five seconds faster than I wanted to go out. So, I felt like I adjusted a little bit but went by Nick, Becca, Chris, Lance and Paul by Riverside Park at 12:35ish, which was about the two mile mark. That was even faster than I wanted to be at 2 miles, by about a minute and thirty seconds. But I still felt okay, proceeding to give some ground to some runners coming from behind but still maintaining a comfortably hard pace.

I got up the hill by Riverside Park and hear "that's my nephew!" I thought that was strange, so I turned my head a little bit and then heard "Dischinger!" and saw it was Mary out watching the race!

That was nice to have someone unexpected scream. I just kept on rolling, knowing I was still ahead of where I should be but there was no point to intentionally slow my pace to re-adjust. I hit about the 3, 3.5 mile mark before I saw Rachel Karel and she cheered me on too. Another time where I tried to relax and pick up the pace and stay comfortably hard.

I hit the 5 mile mark and started to get tired and then mentally faded a touch, thinking about how I had so much left to go. I hit the 5 mile mark in 31:47, if my memory serves me correctly. I continued to run faster than I wanted to, now I was about 3:13 faster than I wanted to be. My original plan was to go through 5 miles in about 35:00 and 6 in 41:00ish and start picking it up from there little by little.

So, being so far ahead, I at that point decided maybe it was my day to have a good run. I went through six miles in just under 39:00 but at that point could have been out of luck. But I must have focused back on running at that point because I don't remember a 7 mile split. I remember being at about 7.8 miles at 50:14ish, a few minutes quick still. But at that point I just had to charge hard and keep going.

I came up on 8 miles and though "ugh, two more miles still. I've got to just keep going okay, just steady for the next mile and we'll go from there." I kept rolling along on the road keeping my intensity consistent.

I got to the 9 mile mark and figured I had enough energy to continue to churn away. I was still ahead of pace after keeping a very consistent pace up to that point, surprising myself a bit. I remember thinking that if I kept rolling I could be at about 64 minutes, well ahead of my 67:00 goal.

Nine miles came and went, I veered left heading down Summit Avenue trying to continue to pick up the pace as I still felt good enough to do so. I did need someone to cheer me on a bit earlier but I kept rolling and saw the squad again at the Cathedral. At that point I felt really good and put on a nice kick to get to the finish.

It was great hearing Chris yelling "Disch!" as loud as he could as I streaked by. It was fun to see Nick smiling, Becca taking a picture and Katy taking a picture as well. I also saw Deb cheering me on but somehow missed really locking in on Bob's face. I went another 200 meters and saw Lance and Paul on the right and started kicking harder.

Also, at that point I could have just hit the ground at anytime as I was not even taking much oxygen in but was coming down the hill hard.

I come to find out later that they were waiting for me at the Cathedral and Nick approximated I'd be coming in in another few minutes-according to my predicted time. Apparently, Chris yells something to the effect of "here he comes!", still minutes ahead of where I thought I'd be. I came and went, heard Chris cheering for me and as I ran by I heard him following me yelling for me to keep going. Now that I think about it I remember trying to out run Chris at that point.

I ran through the finish in 1:02:55, about 4 minutes faster than I anticipated I could do. I walked through the finishing area got my warm ups, put them on while saying hi since they came down to the finishing area.

Here is all of my data and a link that might work? Joel's 10 Mile Race Results
(Search Dischinger)

NO	FN	LN	DIVISION	OVERALL	DIVPL	SEXPL	CHIP TIME	TIME	PACE
10376	Joel	Dischinger	M2229	96	49/436	85/2254	1:02:55	1:02:57	6:18

Well, to continue the trend of writing...

Josh came through the 10 mile in 1:24:21.

Laura came through the marathon in 3:38:27 and qualified for the Boston Marathon! From what I hear, she's also already registered!

Maybe we'll make a trip to the East in April!

More pictures will be added later. Katy used Josh's camera and we've got to get the pictures off of that.

I'll let you know what's next!