12 year olds throwing curveballs and oven doors...

I honestly think that ESPN is being irresponsible by not addressing the simple fact that kids should NOT be throwing curveballs until they are finished growing. I cannot overstate this. I don't know much about much, but I do have some experience in baseball, and I can tell you unequivocally that the most irresponsible thing that parents can do for their "future derek jeter" is allow him to throw a curveball before he can drive. When I was coaching modified baseball (13 and 14 year-olds), breaking balls were outlawed. I had several arguments with parents about this. I basically had to break it down for them...I actually drew a picture for one parent... Until your done growing, trying to throw them leads to shoulder problems, plain and simple...If you want to do your son a favor, teach him to throw a change-up, it's much more effective pitch to begin with, even at the big-league level.

Ok, now that I got that rant out of my system - I made my debut at the oven door run yesterday. I've heard for years about the "door" from one of my co-workers Dave (who I run with frequently on our lunch break), but had never shown up for it. It's basically the runner's version of the latte ride, essentially an unofficial race/group hammerfest. The run meets at 630am every saturday and does one of a few different loops every week. Yesterday we did the "classic linear park" loop. It was a relatively tame pace for about 3 minutes, then someone decided it shouldn't be, that someone happened to be a guy I know well from skiing...and after about the 3rd half mile clip, that the aforementioned Dave, threw in at a 5 minute/mile pace, I realized this was going to be a tough one, I managed to hang one for the bronze medal in the oven-door-lympics, but it was super tough...it was a great workout and given that I'm doing a half marathon next month, and want to have a good one there, this is the type of workout I needed.

This was my last weekend in Rochester until late September, but I will say, it was such an amazing weekend. I am definitely looking forward to some of the adventures to come, but I will miss home.

7 days - 1 baby, 1 wedding, 1 weekend-long going away party...

The items listed in the subject of this post have all happened since my last post...and some work a lot of training and an awful lot of humidity, but other than that, it was a pretty normal week...all of these events are worthy of their own entry, but since they all happened in such rapid succession, they'll have to be combined...

First, two weekends ago was a going away party/30th birthday party for my buddy Kevin. He's moving to the UAE later this month and turns 30 in September (about 3 weeks after I do). There were several events all day on Friday and Saturday, of which I participated in most. I think this was my 4th or 5th 30th birthday part that I've been to and all of them were pretty heavy weekends all around. This one was no different, especially when you factor in that Kevin is also moving to the Middle East for a couple years. I'm lucky in that I'll still be able to see him pretty frequently because of work, however, many of his close friends and family won't see him much more than once a year for the next couple years. I will say that I think everyone gave him a great send-off.

On to last Thursday. My sister-in-law Sueann gave birth to their 3rd child (2nd daughter), Megan Elizabeth. Here are a couple pictures.

Aunt Nancy

Keith and Megan

The day after visiting Megan in the hospital, we went to Kate's wedding. Kate was one of Nancy's bridesmaids in our wedding and one of her closest friends. She's also really into biking and a lot of other outdoor activities. Below are some pictures of the wedding.

Kate and JT.
Kate and her father. Not going to lie, the kilt was a pretty cool touch.
Kate and Nancy.

Since I got back from Georgia, I've managed to string together a few solid weeks of volume training doing all types of stuff - lots of running and roller skiing, but also some mountain biking (still a trainwreck) and road biking, so I'm feeling pretty good about that. I've got nothing going on this weekend coming up which will be really strange. I am planning on doing a 5k running race on Saturday and get in some other training through the weekend. I'm also trying to put some plans in place to ski (that's right, ski, on snow) on my 30th birthday in a few weeks, we'll see how that materializes. So, plenty of good stuff coming up.