Introduction

On June 26, 2016 I ran the Faxon Law Group Half Marathon.

I had a 6 am flight to California the day after the race (Monday) to present at an FCC Bootcamp sponsored by ACI.  I can’t speak off the cuff. I have to write out exactly what I want to say in advance and practice, practice, practice. I do love doing it, but it takes a lot of work for me to be comfortable enough to get up and have fun speaking. I always do my speech practice after work to avoid shortchanging my employer just because I am not the world’s most natural speaker, so the week before  the FCC workshop was long too.

I got back that Thursday and Friday was busy catching up on work.

That weekend was the 4th of July weekend and I was exhausted physically and mentally  from speech prep, regular work, the half marathon, and the time difference.  I crashed that Saturday July 2nd. On Sunday July 3rd I had my energy back and wrote the below draft race recap. Monday was busy with the 4th of July holiday. I meant to finish polishing the race recap later that week and publish.

That week my brother passed away at age 36.

 I hope in the future to have the right words and state of mind to write a blog honoring him.

For those who knew, thank you all for your kind calls, texts, messages, emails, and visits.  I am sorry I haven’t been able to respond to and visit with everyone while I was in Alabama.  It was more important to focus on my parents and relatives I hadn’t seen in years while I was in town and not on my phone.

I am back home in NY now and getting into my new normal.  Kevin and I are leaving for a Yankees game in a bit and I intend to honor my brother while I am there, which I may write about later.

In the meantime,  I do want to ease back into my daily routine, including blogging, but I can’t bring myself to polish the draft race blog. It would feel unnatural and I just can’t do it.  So below is the draft blog, typos and all, that I meant to finish that week.

Draft Race Blog

Last Sunday I finished half marathon distance #5 of 2016, the Faxon Law Group Fairfield Half Marathon.

It took me awhile get this recap posted because I flew to California the morning after the race to co-present in a workshop on FCC privacy regulations and to attend the other days of the FCC Boot Camp. I participated in this panel last year and it went well enough that it was expanded from a 1 hour presentation to a 3 hour post conference workshop this year. My focus this year was teaching how to put together a training program to prevent security breaches.

I learned new stuff to keep me up at night and while I was in town I got to meet our California based outside counsel in person for the first time.

I don’t know how you envision my work trips for speaking slots, but if you picture me out hob knobbing every night that doesn’t happen.

The truth of the matter is on Monday I woke up at 4:30 am for my flight, landed in California and hustled straight from the airport to the conference to attend a 3 hour pre-conference workshop. After the workshop I was so wiped out from the race, early morning wake up call, 3 hour intensive workshop, and 3 hour time difference that I did not try to find somebody to go to dinner with. Instead I checked my inbox to make sure there were no fires, then I went to Hot Spud, got myself a take out potato, went back to my hotel room where I ate my potato, watched My Big Fat Fabulous Life, and promptly fell asleep.

I redeemed myself on nights 2 and 3 by going out to dinner with a co-presenter and our outside counsel.

And on to the race recap!

This half marathon is the flattest I’ve done this year, some definite hills, but not too bad.

The weather was the real concern. I got this email a few days prior.

 

 

Fortunately, no red or black flags came out.

There were stations set up to spray water on us along the way- they were off to the side so if you didn’t want to get sprayed you wouldn’t. There were also a few people out on their lawns spraying us with their hoses.

My time was 2:05:10. I ran it 20 seconds faster the last time I did this, but I’m happy with it.

 

 

 

 

There were lots of spectators and music along the way. Along the way I passed a drum circle, cheerleaders, and the group, Bob and Dave,  below.  If you decide to watch brace yourself.  The band is great but watching the video is like being spun around in a chair. All the runners zipping past the camera results in a bit of a vertigo.

 

 

 

 

More great video footage of the race courtesy of Fairfield University.

 

The best story I have related to the race isn’t running related at all. Here is a little treat for you patent attorneys and people who are into bad patents.

I was browsing the race photographer’s website when I noticed a footer saying they were licensing two patents. I wondered what in the world these patents could be for since, no offense race photographers, they weren’t doing anything novel. Since they weren’t in any market space I’m in I had no fear, so I took a peek.

Brace yourselves now.

“A process for providing event photographs for inspection, selection and distribution via a computer network generally includes the steps of taking event photographs, associating identifying data with each photograph taken, transferring the photographs to a computer network server, and permitting access to the server for searching of a particular photograph utilizing the identifying data. The identifying data can include a name of an event participant, a number corresponding to a number worn by the event participant, the date and time the photograph was taken, or a code captured from a component as it passes a sensor.”

What. The. Frick.

I told my husband about it and he burst out laughing.  We were both intrigued by these patents so he poked around further and discovered, no shocker, these travesties were invalidated.

I emailed the photographer to let them know :).

 

I don’t know why that gorilla is so excited. I didn’t see him out on the race course.