Sundown Night Marathon 2008

Now that we've reached the four day mark since Ashley's graduation, I figured it would be a good time to recap some of the events surrounding my latest marathon run. Over the weekend, I formally completed my fifth full marathon (26.2 miles or 42.2 km). This one was the inaugural Sundown Marathon, run in the country of Singapore. The most unique part of this particular marathon was that it was run at NIGHT! The starting gun went off at precisely midnight on 01 June 2008. This made timing very easy in that one look at the clock instantly told you where we were in the marathon: If the time was 1:20, then we were 1 hour and 20 minutes into the race. What could be easier?!

Pre-Race Version of Greg -- Happy and Sweat-Free:

Well, as I found out, there are a few drawbacks to a midnight start -- for one -- you never have any decent light to run in. Over the course of my entire "adventure" I probably spent 75% of my time in near or total darkness. Do you know how hard it is to navigate curbs, sidewalk cracks, steps, etc. when you cannot even see them? Half the time I was worried about twisting an ankle. I am sure that quite a bit of time was lost just by trying to avoid the seemingly inevitable "fall". Alas -- I never fell, although I did catch a few tree branches in the eye.

Pre-Race Carb Load, Singapore Style: (yum!!)

The start of the great race. It would have been nice to have "legitimate" starting corrals. As it was, I had to burn 2-3 minutes navigating up to where I should have started. Oh well:

Another factor I had not anticipated with this marathon was the fact that we would be running it "urban style". Ahh yes, since this was merely an "inaugural" marathon, not many roadways were closed. During the course of the race, we ran up and down at least five (no, I am not kidding) highway overpass crosswalks -- which meant running up 2-3 switchback style ramps, over a flat crossover, then back down 2-3 switchback ramps down. We also had a crosswalk that required going UP two flights of stairs, then DOWN two flights of stairs, and YES, this was part of the actual marathon. Finally, we had to traverse parking lots, bus stops, pedestrian sidewalks, and even a campground. No, this was most definitely NOT the Boston Marathon. I don't want to complain, but all this "urban" running probably cost about 10-15 minutes of actual clock time.

Boncimino Tradition "Invisible Man" -- required before any legitimate fun / difficult / memorable event:

The temperatures for this race were not really too awful, considering that we were running at the Equator. Start time temp was 80 degF (28 deg C), which was about the same as the finish temp of 78 degF (27 degC). Humidity was high, as usual, and will almost no wind, the humidity just HUNG in the air. This is life in the tropics. No major problems -- it's just what running in SE Asia is all about.

As for my actual performance, I felt reasonably good. My chip time was 3:53:37 -- about 9 minutes off my personal best, but as for effort -- I think this was definitely my best. For one, I finally conquered my perpetual problem of cramping up at the end of marathons. (See my previous stories for details here.) To do this, I learned the magic of taking salt tablets every 35-40 minutes. In all, I took six tabs during Sundown. Since I am a "high sweat" dude, this helped keep my salt levels up, which (I think) kept my calves and quads from cramping, even after 25 miles or 40 km. I managed to finish reasonably well.

Here I am at the finish. Quite a tough race indeed:

It's nice to be able to smile at 4am, after 26 miles of running in pitch darkness:

I'll spare you, the reader, the stress of reading about my mile-by-mile account. Instead, you should know what it's like to run a Night Marathon. For one, I found myself getting TIRED, not from running fatigue, but from night fatigue -- at about the 2 hour mark. This would be at 2am. At this point, I had the pleasure of coming across my family (wife, 2 teenage daughters, + 2 teenage stragglers), and remember telling my 18-year old how much I was wishing this were a half-marathon. Truly, I was tired from just running in the middle of the night. Another weird thing is that the sun just never rises. I finished at about 3:54am. The sun had not come up yet. In most marathons, you start in the pre-dawn hours, but then by the end, the sun is fully ablaze and all is right with the world (Like my two Houston Marathons 2005, 2006). Not so here. Just more darkness. Finally, it's hard to really drum up some real fan support in the middle of the night. There were just NO fans out there. The only people I saw during my entire marathon jaunt were either (a) friends/family of runners, (b) late night commuters caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, or (c) just casual Sinagporeans with nothing else to do with the middle of the night. This was 100% different from the Houston Marathons I have run. The difference between mega fan support and ZERO fan support is pretty big. If I were to quantify it, I'd say the mega support takes off another 5-10 minutes from your time.

So, as for how I did relative to the field, I think I did OK. The winner, finished in 2 hrs 40 min 22 sec. This is a good time, but not a "great" time. According to the official website, out of over 4,000 runners, I actually finished in 43rd place! Not bad. I was 36th in the mens' division, and 43rd overall. Does that really mean that I finished in the top 1.1%? Oh my goodness, that's cool. Official results will not be released for a few days, so we'll just have to wait. I feel that I really ran what "would" have been a 3:35 - 3:40 performance, but due to darkness / stairs / ramps / parking lots, I came in slower, at 3:53:37.

Would I do this again? I think it might be too early to tell. Did I enjoy the challenge? Absolutely. How do I feel about completing my 5th marathon? Very very good. I think it's an accomplishment for any 39-year-old to get out of the house and be able to run one mile, let alone 26.2 miles. I am proud of my accomplishment, and can only hope that my two girls see something they can be proud of when they think of their "old man" crossing a marathon finish line in less than 4 hours. Hey -- that's why it's a marathon and not a sprint.

The official finishers medal. Very nice, eh?

The reverse side of the Finishers' medal. Quite a nice piece of pewter:

greg: five-time marathon finisher

P.S. I look forward to your comments. Write away!!

Ashley Graduates!!

The day of Ashley's Graduation has come and gone. The ceremony on Friday was great (not too long), and we have been filled with a HUGE dose of celebration and gladness. The only thing which could have made it better would have been to have some family make it all the way around the planet to be on hand, but hey -- we didn't make things easy by being all the way over here in Malaysia. Hopefully the pictures below give you a decent idea of how the event went.

ISKL really has been an outstanding school for us so far (one graduate, one to go). Without stretching the truth, it really is the premier high school of Malaysia. In fact, the salutatorian of this year's class is going to Harvard this fall -- as Malaysia's ONLY entrant. The rest of the ISKL class also seems to be equally overflowing with talent.

Anyhow, on with the photos. I would have put these in an online album, but for ease of viewing, they're posted here once and for all. I've uploaded a video of Ashley receiving her diploma, and will add the link as soon as Google activates it. I'd love to hear which pictures below are your favorite(s). I think you might be able to pick out mine.

The ISKL Program:

Here is the graduate "key code" for understanding the listing next to Ashley's name in the following picture. Corrections to note: (1) Ashley should also have been given credit for completing 4 or more AP or IB courses (the star icon); (2) Ashley also should have been given credit for Academic Distinction in Modern Languages for her accomplishments in Spanish, but this was not reported.

The box score for Ashley:

Here is a quick pic of the graduates as they faced the audience. Can you find Ashley?? She's visible to the KEEN eye...


Proud sister Brooke with her big sis:


A Boncimino tradition, the ol' "hold the diploma / certificate / announcement upside down" trick!


Proud mom:


Prouder dad:


No caption necessary:

joyful,

greg

P.S. My marathon today went great. I think I finished in the top 10% of the field. My time was approximately 3:53, but there were a number of factors that make this time oh so strange (would you believe having to walk up and down two flights of stairs DURING the race??!!). Anyhow, today is all about Ashley. I'll write about the marathon in a later post.

P.P.S. Ashley's Graduation Video is now posted on Google Videos. Go see it here:

Graduation Day -- TODAY!!

Today is Graduation Day for our amazing 18-year old girl: Ashley T. Boncimino!

This week got off to a bang with Chris visiting from Singapore. Of course we did all the fun stuff, and had a great time "helping" the girls get ready for Prom 2008 on Saturday. Here are a couple of photos from that event. Does everyone look FANTASTIC?

Then, Cheryl had a nice singing engagement for the Maldives Embassy. Of course, we didn't know where the country of Maldives was, so while listening to Cheryl perform, Chris and I hastily surfed our mobile web to download a map and not appear to be so ignorant.

Monday was the ISKL Graduation Dinner -- a chance for everyone to get dressed up and celebrate with some delicious food. It was held at the Renaissance Hotel here in KL, the same place where graduation will be later on today.

That leaves us with tonight: When Ashley will walk across the stage to collect her hard-earned diploma. She did such an amazing job in completing high school in two different countries. Not only did she "just" complete high school, she did it as an honor student, completing advanced placement coursework in physics, calculus, English literature, as well as SIX years of Spanish. So much more we can't mention here, but she rocked. Hooray for Ash! We'll post some graduation photos later on. For now, it's awesome to celebrate the girl!!

greg

Live from China

Greetings from Guilin, China. I have now been out here for four days, and all is well. We have been hosting a conference for the major oil companies in China -- they have a LOT of work going on. As for living conditions, I have been staying in a hotel called the Guilin Merryland Resort, which is like a mini-resort stuck in the middle of nowhere. Nothing really "wrong" with the place other than the fact that it's just stuck in a very remote part of China.

Today, a couple of friends and I decided to rent some bikes and hit the countryside, which is the basis for the picture above. I think that's a billboard behind me, but I really can't be sure. Anyone know Mandarin? Our ride was nice and took us through several towns, hundreds of rice patties, and through a part of the world completely different from the one I grew up in. No electricity, no running water, no satellite. It's almost like a trip back to the 1700's!

Our hotel features a drinking hole with a bit "more" to offer than the typical American bar. Just read for yourself:

Sound like a place you'd be interested in? What a "creative" translation, too.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll be headed back to Malaysia after a full day of bus and plane rides. If all goes well, Chris should be arriving about the same time I do, so we'll begin that adventure together.

greg

Post Script: I have just heard the tragic news about the death of Steven Curtis Chapman's 5-year old daughter, Maria. Please pray for the Chapman family. Cheryl and I have gotten to know Steven through a mutual friend, and this news comes as such a sudden and sad shock. However, as I just posted on their In Memory of Maria blog, it is at such times when all we can do is just look to our Lord and cling to His promises. Yet even through this He is faithful and true. GB

Prom Season and oh so much more...

Wow. Lots going on over here. It was nice to spend Sunday just lounging around the house to rest from last week, and get ready for next week. If I went into all the details, you'd say "wow, they're nuts". Or, you may say, that ain't so bad!! Nonetheless, I felt compelled to bring you in on a few tidbits of life here in warm, toasty Malaysia:

My last real LONG run before the Marathon

I did a 12-miler on Saturday, and now I am officially in my two week taper before the Sundown Marathon on Sat, 31 May. Cool thing about the run? I was just shooting for a nice 8:30 pace, and ended up with a 7:59 pace! I cranked out 12 miles in under 96 minutes, which I never would have thought I could do right now. Temps were cooler than during last week's 20-miler -- a chilly 80 degrees at the start. Not bad. Anyway, I'm feeling up for the run, and can't wait to see what running 26.2 miles at midnight is like!!

Prom Dress Shopping

Cheryl has been uber-busy working on song-writing projects for music school, so I was given the unique opportunity to take my two gorgeous daughters prom-dress-shopping yesterday! Some dads might despise such an assignment, but I really enjoyed it. We managed to find the shop without TOO much trouble. Both girls tried on a lot of nice dresses. I am so proud to be their dad -- so hard to believe these two gems are mine... Anyway, Brooke found a nice purple dress before long, and we were left to find something perfect for Ashley's final HS prom. And..... I'm proud to say that I found the dress she ultimately decided to keep. How cool is that?! (NO I didn't just want to get outta there, you skeptics!)

The Last Lecture
I'm sure that many of you have seen the video of Randy Pausch giving his "Last Lecture". Pausch is the Carnegie Mellon professor diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, and given just 3-6 months to live. He will soon be leaving behind a wife and three kids. Such a heart breaking story. Anyhow, in the past week, I've read his book and watched the video. A&B saw the video with me. He really does share some pearls of wisdom about how to REALLY live life. If you haven't checked out the video or read the book, I highly recommend both. You can also read his blog here.

The Wealth of Nations

Actually, I don't have much time to read books these days, but when I do, I want to read GOOD material. (No romance novels for me. Ha!) Something that Steven Sample argued in The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership (one of my all-time favorite books) was that if you were going to spend time reading, you'd better read the SuperTexts, the 50 or so truly great works that mankind ever has written. Now, I can't confess to really have done much of that, but I'm going to continue my slow journey. I'm now reading Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. Since I just earned my MBA a year or two ago, and since I'm pretty active in international business, I am quite interested in reading the definitive text that opened the world's eyes to to free market economics. Before ordering, I had no idea how long of a book this was, but at 1,208 pages I may have bit off more than I could chew. I'll let you know how all this works out.

Kerry Shook at Willow

Since Cheryl had a rehearsal last night, we weren't able to attend our usual Saturday evening church service. Instead we woke early today to watch Willow Creek's weekend service online. We had a blast seeing an acquaintance of ours, Kerry Shook, speak there. Cheryl and I have known Kerry and served alongside him in many, many events through the years. I think our first gig was mixing audio for Point of Grace when they stopped by FOTW (Fellowship of the Woodlands) way back in 1993 or so. Cheryl and I also manned the FOTW site for a couple of Willow Creek Leadership Summit conferences, and served for a time at FOTW as members. Anyhow, Kerry's message was brilliant. I hope to give his book a read sometime soon.

Chris is in Asia

My little bro is in Asia (Singapore) and is going to visit this weekend, after I return from China. Although the girls are going to have Prom on Saturday, this isn't something you can skip. Can't wait to have Chris here. I think we're going to let him do the girls' makeup. What do you think? Good idea?

China Tomorrow

I'm off to Guilin, China tomorrow, so it's really time to end this post now. I'll be a safe as possible, and try to post something while there. In the meantime, have a great week.

greg

Going To All The Hot Spots

Just checking in with everyone; so sorry for the lack of posting lately.


On the home front, things are going well. Ashley has all but finished high school now, and is actively counting the days until graduation. She has been a real trooper -- working hard to take AP exams for college credit when most teens would be coasting. We are so proud of her hard work.

As for the title of this post, I realized this week that my next few weeks of travel should really be interesting. For one, I will be spending all of next week in central China, a few hundred miles East of where the massive earthquake hit yesterday. I am in Bangkok today, where supposedly we "felt" it, but I must say that I did not. Next week we have a conference in Guilin, China. It's supposed to be a nice town, but as with anything in China -- you still have to be smart. I will be with a large group, and well taken care of.

Then, after Ashley's graduation and the Sundown marathon, I head over to Yangon, Myanmar (Burma) for business meetings there. Again, I'll be on full alert, but with the cyclone damage and intensive relief efforts for the millions of homeless, it will be another adventure. Needless to say, with the full clamp-down on communications from the military junta -- you won't be hearing from me until I get back out on June 4th. For as poor of a country as Myanmar is, they need to continue their oil & gas production to get (any) revenue -- hence, my presence is key to that end.

Just to "give it another go", I am going to open this blog up for public consumption once again. Last year I shut it down after the commentary got to be too much to endure. I want this blog to have easier access (for friends and family), but am fully mindful of the implications thereof. For better or worse, I'll give it another try.


Thanks, everyone, for the birthday wishes. It's wild to think that I'm now less than a year from being a 40 year old!

greg

p.s. Super duper congratulations to Kristin for joining the world of college graduates! Awesome awesome awesome!

We Almost Have a High School Graduate!!

Just a quick update for all: We are getting ever-closer to having a high school graduate in our midst! Ashley finished her last official day of school on Monday, and is now in the final moments of studying for her three Advanced Placement (AP) exams in Physics, Calculus, and US History. She has made the honor roll, and is finishing out her high school "career" in style! To say that we're proud of her is an understatement!

Graduation day is May 30th, 2008. We realize that it might be kinddddda hard for many of you to travel around the world to cheer her on and come to our grad party. However, there is nothing to stop you from sending her all kinds of congratulations and encouragement to her. As with all high school grads, I'm sure she'd LOVE those gifts of $$$ and college prep stuff that we all enjoyed when we graduated. If you want to send physical gifts, just mail to our San Diego address. Write to me if you don't have that address (comment to this post with your email address). She can also accept US checks, not a prob. (Sorry I have to be the "dad" here, but I just know that in many ways Ashley is outside of the normal "line-of-sight" and I don't want her to feel that she is somehow forgotten.)

Well, I have to run. I am in Bangkok now, but flying to KL for an afternoon meeting, then taking an evening flight to Singpore so I can be there for meetings tomorrow. Doesn't that sound "fun"? Not really....

Please pray for the people of Burma / Myanmar. They were hit hard by the cyclone on Saturday. The thing that hurts the most is that their government chose not to warn anyone even after it was obvious they were about to be pummelled. So sad. I will probably be making a business trip to Burma / Myanmar in a few weeks. I'm sure I will see utter devastation. Arrgh.

I love and miss all of you.

greg

Back in Malaysia... But...

So sorry for the lack of posts over the last week or two. The truth is that since we have returned from Italy, life has picked up right where it left off. However, we have had one rather sad task to tackle:

Our wonderful 300 GB external hard drive, the one where thousands of our personal photos are stored, decided to stop working. Now, surely (you think) we've been backing it up, right? Well, not exactly. Photos are big, and backing up tens of gigabytes of photos takes many CDs, and no, we don't have a DVD burner.

SO, after spending last weekend patiently doing every diagnosis possible, we've been forced to send the drive back to Seagate, requesting their best "Data Recovery Services" and we hope for the best. Now, this isn't the end of the world by any stretch -- yes, we still have lots of other pictures, and some are in places like PhotoBucket or on other computers, but there are quite a few that would effectively be going down the drain if the data is unrecoverable. We shall see.

In other news....

ASHLEY is about a month and a half from her high school graduation. She hasn't succommed to senioritis, at least as far as I can tell. She is busy cramming for her three AP (Advanced Placement) exams which are about 3 weeks away. She will be sitting for Calculus, Physics, and US History. She's a smart cookie, that one.

CHERYL is busy arranging music for school, and just put together an awesome new song. I hope to load it here sometime so you can hear it. She is also leading worship at church almost every week. This is great experience for her. Even right now she is busy practicing piano.

BROOKE is being our awesome sophomore. Track season is basically done, but she is still busy. She has a band concert on Thursday. Time to break out that cool red trombone yet again.

ALFREDO is digging his Malaysian life. He has become a chillin' white poodle, and still literally stops traffic whenever we take him for walks.

I am still working hard for the next marathon, coming up the day after Ashley's graduation. Unfortunately Cheryl is going to be dropping out due to lack of time to train, and some nagging breathing problems. Ash is still targeting the race, but has been having some serious ITB pain for the past few long runs.

Tomorrow I'm off for Bangkok yet again. Just a quick one day trip; hope to be back in time for the band concert. Hey, the Olympic flame came through town today, and it looks like there weren't too many (if any at all) problems. Now it's off to Jakarta, just a few miles down.

Finally, we can all be very pleased that the Cubs have taken a 1/2 game lead after their Sunday win. 12-6 is a nice record, and a great way to start the year. Many many games to go.

greg

Italy: An Amazing Trip

Well, our wondrous vacation to Italy is over. The girls returned to Malaysia on Saturday, and we returned yesterday (Monday). [I actually took still ANOTHER flight to Los Angeles, and am now in San Diego (Monday evening).]

Below I've attached another solid batch of photos. Since my last post, we managed to see a LOT of Italy: Viterbo, Perugia, Rome, Naples, and Pompeii. In the interest of time, I'll just post the photos now, then annotate them later. In summary, we just had an outstanding time. The girls performed four times throughout Italy; Cheryl and I stayed in seven different hotels in our eight nights; we managed to drive an astounding 3000 kilometers (1,865 miles) in those same eight days. If you were to look at our driving route, you wouldn't believe it!

We have so many funny, sad, interesting stories -- they will just have to pour out in the coming days and weeks. We saw more than just the "sights" -- we got to meet the people. We stayed in Bed & Breakfast places all over the country, and in the process found some very interesting and unique people. Italy is a one-of-a-kind place, and in our eight days we managed to see so much of it and experience it in such a unique way. We highly recommend visiting (even when the US Dollar is at such a pit)....

Enjoy the pictures / give your comments / etc etc

greg