It’s a slow process, but it’s progress in the right direction.  My running continues to come along.  I had a great workout yesterday. 

In June, a buddy asked me to come to Tahoe to pace him in his first 100 mile run, the Tahoe Rim Trail.  I despirately wanted to go, but because of my fitness, I was not comfortable telling him yes right away.  I asked him to let me get one of my benchmark workouts in over the weekend and let him know after that.  Well, that workout did not go well.  A course I’ve run in under 2 hours(in perfect, cool weather), and usually 2:15 to 2:20 in mid-summer conditions, took me just over 2:50 on that June workout.  Not only that, but I’d planned on doing that loop twice.  Just couldn’t do it.  Based on that, I had to turn him down, and miss being part of his first 100 mile run.  It killed me, but it motivated me.  I’ve run that same loop every other weekend since then, and yesterday clicked it off in 2:23, and still had plenty of energy to play some baseball with William afterwards.

That’s a great step forward.  Unfortunately, I’ve not done so well on the weight loss side of things, a week of vacation, with ‘pre-vacation’ and ‘post-vacation’ excuses, and I’ve not lost an ounce in 2 1/2 weeks.  I have had a lot of good beer though! 

Has my running turned a corner?  FINALLY?   I think so!      Only a short run, a little over 4 miles, but for the first time in months, I REALLY felt good.  I ran hard, pushed the hills, and was very surprised that while I certainly wasn’t what I’d call fast, a couple 3 minutes off my best for that course, it was a time that fits in with a lot of training runs I’ve done when in much better shape.    

Keep in mind, I normally run in the hottest part of the Florida day(1-3 oclock), or evening thunderstorm conditions so humid I need gills to breath, so even when in good shape, it’s really difficult to run well in mid-summer.  Most runs this year have turned into a test of survival, slow jogging (badwater shuffle type stuff), or taking walk breaks.

This run was hot, muggy, and with humidity better suited for a catfish than a human, but I was truckin!   Pushed the pace,  push hard on a uphill, then back off and recover without almost stopping.

I’m sure it helps that I’ve lost 8 lbs in the last 3 weeks.  With Tamara’s help, I’ve been very focused on a quality diet. 

Well, that’s not much news, but it’s good news to me!

 Congratulations to all the Badwater runners that just finished the 31st Badwater Ultramarathon.  First time in three years that I have not been out there putting it all on the line.  I missed it.  A buddy of mine was wearing a SPOT GPS tracking device, so I could go online, and see his updated track every 10 minutes.  It was very cool.  

 OH, and good luck to the VOLSTATE runners that start their 500k (320 miles!!!) trek in Tennessee tomorrow.  Some supported with a crew, and some that, believe it or not, will go the whole 500 kilometers with NO support crew.  They carry what they need, and stop and buy anything else.  10 day time limit.   

THAT sounds like fun next year, huh?!

Oh, check this price of gas for folks going through Death Valley…

At least I can’t, not anymore.  As much as I love running, over the last few years of ‘only ultra-running’ type workouts, ie. SLOW RUNS, my upper body has continued to get weaker, and my body fat has gone UP.  NOT a good thing.  So I’ve started a new program with some high intensity running, and high intensity weight lifting.  Not isolated, body builder type stuff, but explosive, full body workouts including uphill sprints and gymanstics ring workouts.   All it REALLY means is that right now, I am very tired, and very sore, but hey, I’ve lost 5 lbs. (only 25 more to go!) 

Update on the HISTORY CHANNEL Modern Marvels SUPERHOT episode, that features the Badwater Ultra, with a few seconds of ME running in the event.  It will be rebroadcast Saturday the 28th at 7:00pm Eastern. look for #32, Spiderman shorts and cowboy hat.  Shouldn’t be difficult to find, huh?

Ashley, the horse whisperer, has trained another of our Arabians to ride.  She did the same with my horse, we got them as youngsters, having never been ridden.  And two weeks ago, she got on Uno (TCA The One his registered name, we call him Uno) for the first time.  Since then, her and I have done several rides around the property and he’s just doing great.

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 Fathers Day has come and gone, and my big present?  A pedicure from Emily.  Full blown deal, she primped, painted and ground dead skin off my feet with this electric drill thing.  Don’t I look pretty in my flaming Superman pajamas and painted nails?  Thanks Emily!

OK, I admit, not my first pedicure either! The first was by Tamara the night before 2003 Ironman USA, in Lake Placid, NY.  Which was one of my most memorable events, not my best, but very cool, finishing in the same Olympic Skating Oval that Eric Heiden dominated the Olympics with 5 gold medals many years ago.  LINK TO REPORT OF THAT EVENT  Her and Ashley gave me French Pedicure.   Pretty weird, I know.

Last night , about a four second snippet of me running at the 2007 Badwater 135 Ultramarathon made it on the History Channel’s Modern Marvels:Superhot.  

 A buddy of mine recorded it on his phone, and posted it for me.  THANKS MANNY! 

HOW COOL IS THAT!   I’m #32 and about 40 seconds into the video.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYgJVnVSFgg

What have I been up to lately?  Building my own electric guitar.  William and Ashley both have Fender Stratocasters, and I have bought, then sold a couple different Gibsons to try to find something I like, spent quite a bit of time at Guitar Center playing various axes.  Eventually I realized the Strat just seems perfect. 

Designed in the early 1950’s by Leo Fender, it is STILL the mainstay guitar of SO many successful musicians.  The list of guys that consider(or considered) it their main guitar stretch from Buddy Holly, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa,  Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pink Floyd, to John Mayer and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. The Strat’s where it’s at. 

Rather than buy another of what we have, I decided to build my own from parts I selected myself.   It’s still the same guitar, just a ‘custom’ version done exactly like I want.  I started with an unfinished body mostly shaped and routed, then started searching for the neck and other bits and pieces I needed.   William helped me with soldering, polishing, installing the tuners, and in general, being another set of hands and eyes to help be sure everthing was set right. 

Basically, it has become my obsession over the last couple months to get it finished.  Of course, it took much longer than I thought, but I really couldn’t be happier with the result.  I have a full picture gallery of the complete process here http://daveharperphotos.irun100s.com/GalleryList.aspx?gallery=95730  You can click each photo to read the description of what process I was working on, and also access full size photos.

 I used a Swamp Ash unfinished body.  A birdseye maple neck, with rosewood fretboard. I wanted to build a pretty much vintage correct Strat, with my own upgrades as I saw fit.  The basic inspiration was from Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Number One Strat(pictured at bottom of page), thought I obviously did not try to ‘copy’ that guitar, with the enhanced grain, different coloring, different wood, etc. that I used  But I used vintage style tuners, tremolo,  saddles, string tree, and real bone nut  just as would have been on a 1950’s or 1960’s Strat.  I did the contouring on the body to be similar to that era.  An amber tint to the neck gives that older, vintage, yellowed vibe rather than the bright white maple of a brand new Fender.  The decals on the headstock are Fender inspired, but my own take on them.   I even stuck a small quote from Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones on there.  The finish is old school Nitro Lacquer, just as used back in the day.  At one time used for automobile finishes, it’s too toxic for that use these days.  I replaced the modern, cool abalone fret marker dots with cream colored clay dots, to also give a more vintage look.  I think it came out pretty nice.  It’s a joy to play, when I can wrestle it out of William’s hands.

This is the body that I actually started with.

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Above is a copy of the actual Stevie Ray Vaughan guitar that was the starting point for what I was wanting to do.  Below is a Fender replica guitar of the same.  I wanted to do something like this, but actually build a better guitar than I might buy off the shelf, with my own twist on it. 

SRV was killed August 27, 1990 in a helicopter crash following a concert in East Troy, Wisconsin, headed to Chicago.  Also on stage that night had been Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, Jimmie Vaughan. (though obviously none of them were onboard the helicopter)

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LENNY

TEXAS FLOOD

LOVE STRUCK BABY

I went for a run yesterday, and I felt that desire to crank it up again.    I am about to enter a 100 miler for November, and start serious training for that.  Kind of excited about it, after taking several months of rest. 

 When I got home from my run, Tamara and my daughter Emily were waiting for me to help her complete a homework assignment of measuring how far one of her parents could run in 10 seconds.  In her PE class, they had to see how far THEY could run in 10 seconds.  So, Emily marks a starting line and sends me off, Tamara monitors the clock,  Ashley is down the street to mark the finish spot.  I’m feeling like an idiot trying to sprint on legs that don’t do a lot of sprinting these days.  While they are screaming wildly for me to go faster like it’s a real race,  the neighbors are sitting out on their property with friends,  drinking beer and wondering what the heck the Harper’s are up to now.

The measurement was 282 feet and some inches.  Not even a day later, and I wish I could do it again, I could go much farther with a better start and quicker accelaration.  I slow getting to top speed.  Funny how I can break that 10 seconds into 3-4 different pieces just like you might a long distance run.  Forget it, I think I’m too old to start training for the 100 yard dash!

I came inside the house gasping for air.  WOW, that was hard!  I cannot believe how long it took me to recover from that effort of 10 seconds of 100% effort.  It’s very different to run like that, to give 100% effort from a complete rest,  than it is to do the long aerobic distances, or even to sprint to the finish of something like a triathlon run, or 5 or 10k.   It was fun, and Emily was impressed that I went far.   

William and I did some riding this weekend…

 William and I did some riding this weekend.  The day before, on Friday, I went riding with a buddy, DirtBikeMike.  He had a pretty bad crash while following me.  I had to go back and find him, he had gone down hard.  Arm was very swollen, he’d had the breath knocked out of him, and his ribs were hurting.    We could get his bike to start, but something was broke in the gearbox.  SO, we had to leave his bike, and I had to ride him out of the woods on my bike, to get back to our trucks, went straight to get ice and ibuprofen.  Then got as close as we could to his motorcycle with our trucks.  It left me 1/2 mile by the GPS calculation for me to have to go in and push his bike out.  Mike couldn’t do anything but sit in the truck.   1/2 mile is a LONG way to push a 350 pound motorcycle on dirt trails!   I ran in, and actually got out pretty quick, but that was certainly my workout for the day!

Some additional photos at http://daveharperphotos.irun100s.com/GalleryThumbnails.aspx?gallery=67310

Horses on Saturday, Motorcycles on Sunday.  What could be better?

On Saturday, Ashley and I, took Reggie and Rocky to Croom for some trail riding.  It’s a State Park about an hour from us, hundreds of acres of hiking, biking and horse trails.  I’ve run hundreds and hundreds of training miles out there,  now I’m starting to rack up miles on my horse.    We ended up riding about 4 1/2 hours and had a great time.  Covering a lot of ground that we’ve never seen,  I was on Rocky FAR longer than I ever had been.  We did quite a bit of trotting, and though I worried about overdoing it, he never acted like he was tired, and today, Sunday, he does not seem sore.   He truly seems to love the trails as much as I do, he’s curious, wants to see what’s around the next bend,  hates to stop, and always wants to be moving, and moving quickly if I’ll let him.  I’m lovin’ it.   Ashley and I were both exhausted when we got back to the trailer.  Here are some photos from our day, and a couple of videos.  Click the thumbnails to see a larger photo, and click the link to see the video segments.

Croom 2008 Video 1

Croom 2008 Video 2

Then Sunday, I was to meet a buddy for some motorcycle riding in the dirt.  He ended up not being able to make it, but I headed out to get dirty anyway.  I hooked up with a couple of other riders on the trails, and not a mile after that, I ran out of gas(having to turn my tank to reserve.)  That sent me heading out of the woods, back down the road to fill up.  After that, I went exploring on many trails in the Withlocochee(sp?) Forest that I’d never been on, and found and marked on my GPS a trailhead for some horse trails I’d also never seen before.  Maybe a future trip for me and Ashley.  Never crossed paths with any other motorcycle riders, but did see both wild turkeys and deer.  I rode about 75 miles total, and was so busy riding I never stopped and took any pictures.  

  Back home, safe and sound.  Awesome weekend.