Take 2!

It was a thing of beauty! Perfect in syntax and all the right things were said. I spent an hour typing away and scrolled down to hit "submit" when, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a "DATA BASE ERROR" screen (see photo) - and with that, my masterpiece was lost in Cyberspace forever.. Oh well, I guess that's what short-term memory is for. Let me see if I can recreate it (I hear the same thing happened to Tolstoy after his first draft of War and Peace was eaten by his dog..).

I'm really not sure who the people in the picture are, but I do know that as of last night they're not on American Idol anymore! It was a bittersweet way to spend my evening, typing away on my blog only to watch the rug get pulled out from underneath these four obviously bad singers at about the same time my blog entry was pulled out from under me. : ) The moral of this American Idol story is (to quote Ryan Seacrest) - "if you have a favorite, you must vote!".. Touching words that have carryover value to everything from the presidential elections (both past and present) to "win 100 of ANYTHING Powerbar" contests - voting for the LATTER will commence on March 12th!

When I got out of bed yesterday morning following my late night butterfly run on Wednesday, I had that incredible stiffness and muscle tightness that can only mean I ran myself ragged! I wasn't quite walking down the stairs sideways, but the effort definitely registered and gave me a great excuse to schedule a recovery day. Not that my mind was on running yesterday anyway - for me yesterday was all about getting done with work early(ish) so I could dash off to REI and spend that dividend!

The two purchases I made (which gobbled up a sizable chunck of the dividend) were a Gore-Tex jacket by Mountain Hardware (see picture) - this is the layer that will be between me and the elements (or at least between the elements and the layer I have on underneath it) so it took way longer to pick it out than I ever thought it would. I'm typically a very fast shopper, but I took a page from my wife's playbook and tried on everything suitable they had (twice) and made the decision based on what didn't make me look fat. I also got a fleece mid-layer, which I can't say too much about, because when you get right down to it, fleece is fleece! Overall the shopping trip was a huge success and now I can check off my upper torso, head, hands and feet as being taken care of. Next up - everything below my waist and above my ankles..

One last exciting thing was the arrival of a pair of shoes one of my sponsors wants me to wear at the North Pole. While BITE Shoes makes probably the best sandals on the planet, I'm going to have to put my creativity cap on to figure out a way to walk outside in sandals without losing all of my toes to frostbite. I'll find some way to make it happen.

Talk to you all later!

Bobby

P.S. Remember - just a week left to get your "uses for Powerbars at the North Pole contest" ideas in! Register on YourRUNNING.com and submit your idea today! On March 12, the top five ideas will be voted on by YOU!

Also remember that for every post of a picture, story or forum topic, YourRUNNING.com is donating $5 to the Challenged Athletes Foundation! Pull out that running journal and let us hear about that race you ran last year or that new shoe you bought last week. This site is ALL about running, so the sky's the limit!