Blog Slacker...

Yeah, that would be the correct title for this post! This past week was super busy with teaching a class during the day, school at night, family, and workouts. All meaning not much time for blogging.

In fact, next week will be as equally as busy because now I need to get caught up on all the administrative stuff at work and I have two test next week one of which being a midterm. Spare time will be spent studying. The first test is on Monday night covering a few tough subjects, the nervous system and the endocrine system. I have a whole new respect for endocrinologist...pheww...tough stuff. Thursday night is my midterm which will be on the first 9 chapters in my exercise physiology class and I need to do well on this test. Right now I have a "C" average in that class and I really want to do better then that.

The class I taught this week went really well just seem to drag on forever, in fact, the entire week seemed to drag on but alas it is finally done.

Workouts have been going well in the strength department with a couple of good dumbbell sessions. Running has been nonexistent in the past couple of weeks and I'm missing it and look forward to getting back to hitting the pavement. I've been maintaining my weight well...that means eating well:) but no major weight gain. Life is moving very fast right now and I need to find a way too slow it down!

Gracie is doing really well at school and got the best marks you can get on her first little report card. We had a parent teacher conference and her teacher just raved about how well Gracie is doing. Daddy is proud. She's been suffering with her asthma this week at night and having a hard to controlling her coughing but seems to be doing better now. She does fine during the day just night time coughing. She was supposed to have her first field trip to an apple orchard on Wednesday but it got rained out and they are going Monday instead. Gracie is more excited about riding on the bus with her friends!:) Ashli is going to go and she asked Gracie if she wanted to just leave with her when they were done or go back on the bus and she picked to ride the bus back to the school...too funny. Today she picked out her Halloween costume and decided to be a fairy, cute little costume and I will be sure to take some good picks of trick or treating next week.

This weekend will be spent with my nose in the books and my nose under the hood of my mustang replacing my spark plugs. I will probably go for a short 3 miler in the awesome cooler temps as a release from studying. Ahh...I love fall weather! Have a great weekend! - Jason

A few pics to share....

Daddy's Girl

Life Changes Quickly...

Wow, another super busy week in the books.

I had my second round of tests all last week in school and felt really good about my grades. Things are going somewhat smooth in the school department. Work was again another week of teaching a class for our Desktop support and Store tech support teams. I had some good folks that caught on quickly and did really well which makes the week go by much faster. Next week I need to get caught up on my administrative responsibilities which will take some time.

Well, I have some news that I would like to share. Over the last several weeks I've had to battle a very difficult decision. It is with great frustration and sadness that I've decided to drop out of my marathon. As I said a very difficult decision. Between family, work, running, and a full time school work load it has been too much. I've had a goal to run in a marathon for a very long time and to be this close and have to walk away is very agonizing. Family, work, and school is a much higher priority, in that order. Finding the time for the increased mileage along with my daily responsibilities was a real challenge. For me, as I've said before, I will not sacrifice time with my family which is far more important then getting in any long run. To be honest, it was somewhat of a relief when I finally decided. Not because I didn't want to do it but because I can now concentrate on more important things. See, the quest and journey will continue. I will be registering for the Richmond marathon in 2008. I know other marathons are sooner but I want to run my first in the town I grew up in, Richmond.

I haven't stopped running, that will continue. I haven't stopped strength training, that will continue. I haven't stopped my nutrition, that will continue. I haven't lost my passion for fitness I've only delayed one goal for one more year. For those who have been so encouraging I thank you. I know I would not have made it this far without it. I will continue to document my journey to 26.2 here until the mission is accomplished. I know without a doubt that I've made the correct decision and I'm at peace about it.

So, onward and upward I go pushing towards my dreams and goals one day at a time. There's a large pot of gold somewhere at the end of my rainbow and with my determination and passion I will succeed in its discovery...ya know...I think I've already discovered mine...

These are the most important things, this is my pot of gold. - Jason

Catching Up...

The sun peaks out on the early morning hours on Saturday September 29th. We're on the cool waters of Little River in Little River, South Carolina.

We arrived at the dock around 5:45am and loaded the gear onto the boat and we were on the water by 6am. Our captain, Danny, before shoving off explained that the gulf stream was going to be pushing serious swells by late morning and there was no way we were going to be heading that far out. He did explain that the day before he took a crew out about 14 miles and they caught several nice big king mackerel and that we should give that location a try. The big question mark was how rough the ocean was going to be that far out. As captain Danny said...don't know until we get there!

On the way out it was very apparent we were going to be in for a wild ride. Around the 3 mile mark we were already in 3 to 4 foot swells but we moved on. Around 10 miles out the swells were in the 6 foot range and by the time we hit 13 miles out we were in 8 to 10 foot swells....we were a rockin'.

We started to troll the rough water around 13 miles out and within about 5 minutes or so we hooked our first fish a big king mackerel. We were able to pull in 2 more smaller king mackerel but not without falling around the boat. The swells made fishing a real challenge, just getting back to the rods was treacherous. We had several swells that were probably over the 10 foot mark that really shook us good.

As the time passed captain Danny realized that it just wasn't working with the swells as large as they were. No fun trying to reel fish in and falling all over the place. So he made the call to start to head back towards the shoreline.

So we packed up the rods and secured all the gear and started our way back closer to the shore line. Danny put that boat full throttle and we rode those swells all the way back into the coast, what a wild ride with waves crashing down on us.

Here are a couple more pics from the rougher section about 14 miles out on the ocean. It's amazing how small you feel when your that far out and you see no land in all directions. I love being on the water though, what a blast.

The picture on the right is when we first started to head back in closer to the coast. You can see some of the spray coming from over top the boat.

As we moved closer inland the swells decreased significantly in size. We decided to go all the way in and fish right off the beach. Once we started to troll the water the fish started to bite. We caught about 45 or so Spanish mackerel which are much smaller then the king and don't fight much at all. The water was still a little rough but compared to what we were in earlier it might as well have been like glass. It's amazing how quickly you adjust to the rough water, well at least all of us did. Our captain did an amazing job navigating his boat in that rough water. I found out later he was in a really bad storm a couple of years back and experienced and survived 30 plus foot swells, his boat getting shredded, dodging sharks, and being rescued by the coast guard. It's good to have a guy of his experience level navigating the boat for you.

Captain Danny is the second one from the right and from this picture you can see how much calmer the water is from when we were further out.

On the right is our fish stash building and you can see the big king mackerel in the center of the cooler and the smaller Spanish mackerel all around. It stayed nice and cool all morning and we had a blast. We decided to only do a half day instead of the full we originally planned due to the wind advisory. After being in 8 to 10 foot swells I know I want no part of 20 plus foot swells.

We started to head back to dock right around 12 noon. It was a great ride all the way in to the dock. I loved just being on the boat as much as I did fishing. I took a few pictures on the way in.

Once we got back to the dock and got all our gear off the boat and to the car we went down and helped captain Danny clean and cut the fish. Even though the weather did not play well we still had a great time and I enjoyed every minute of it. My father-in-law got some great video in the rough water and is making a fun movie out of it. In the video you really can feel how rough it was out there.

We loved it so much were thinking about another trip at the beginning of December and then maybe one around late April. I want to get out in the gulf stream and try and catch some large Tuna and Mahi-Mahi, something that will put up a good fight. We got back around 4pm on Sunday afternoon and then Monday it was back to the grind. I had tests in every class, it was a very busy week.

I will update on the running front tomorrow. I hope everyone has a safe Saturday and a good Sunday morning. - Jason