September 2008

I've always found the emphasis on 'attack ads', political commercials that portray a political opponent in a bad light, a bit silly. How would any serious voter be influenced by a 30 second TV commercial?

I don't know much about North Carolina's politicians, but I've heard about Elizabeth Dole before; she's a senator for North Carolina and has a long history in national politics as well. Now, the first associations that I have with her name are "very ineffective" and "43 years in Washington DC". It may be completely unfair, but the first thoughts I have about Mrs. Dole are pretty negative -- a direct result of this TV ad that has been airing very frequently lately (there are on-line ads against her as well). I like to think I'm rational enough to ignore these associations and thoughts, but who knows?

On my way home from work I listened to the last 15 minutes of a debate between the two major candidates for Governor of North Carolina, Bev Perdue and Pat McCrory. Bev Perdue I know, but again the main thing I "know" about Pat McCrory is that he will "favor Charlotte over the other areas in North Carolina", because of an ad I heard on the radio once. Would it influence my vote? It's hard to tell, but I'm not so certain anymore that attack ads don't work.

On a related topic, Monday night at the Jaycees in Chapel Hill BJ Lawson spoke about why he his running for Congress. I don't think I've ever met an American politician before, and it was an interesting evening.

On Sunday August 17 we got up at 4.30 am to prepare for our race in San Diego, America's Finest City 2008. It was a beautiful course, the nicest I've ran so far, and Sasha and I were quite successful with personal records for both of us.

On Friday night we walked the last few miles of the half marathon course, pretty much all of it uphill in the beautiful but hilly downtown area. It was good I knew that this was coming at the end of the race; I was mentally prepared and in my calculations I allowed for some extra walk breaks near the end. The over-all result was 2:18, a couple of minutes faster than my previous two races.

A lot of people asked: "isn't it terribly hot in San Diego?" but the weather was great for running. It was sunny, but not humid at all and very bearable. When we returned back in North Carolina 10 days later it took us a while to get used to the warm and humid weather again.

Buses took us from Balboa park to the start of the half marathon. Early in the morning, watching the sunrise at the Cabrillo National Monument

There were more than 7,500 participants.

I dropped my bag with warm clothes at the start and they were at the finish when I arrived. I was glad I had some warm clothes with me; it was windy at the start, although not really cold.

After the national anthem, the race started. At the start there was music: "California Dreaming". I really liked running a race in California.

The first mile or so was downhill, through the military area around the Cabrillo monument.

After that, it was about 8 miles flat, along the Embarcadero with a great view of the San Diego skyline. We took this picture when we went to pick up our bib's on Saturday.

Downtown was uphill, and the finish was in Balbao Park where we had taken the bus early in the morning. The picture above doesn't show it well, but that's where the incline began (it would get a lot worse a mile in). We took this picture earlier in the week.

Our shoes together. Instead of chips the race used disposable RFID tags.

After our races!