Slazyk's Musings

Happy anniversary Lena. It’s been a great six years and I’m looking forward to the next sixty. Love you.

Lena and the boys at the neighborhood park. Jon is getting the hang of baseball.

Finished week 6 of my training program this morning. Felt pretty good and pleased with my pace considering I climbed almost as much as I’ll do in The San Francisco Marathon. Big difference is the elevation gain was crammed into 11 miles instead of 26.2. Lena had breakfast waiting when I got back home. Awesome!

As nice as it is running around the lake, it’s getting old. I like it for the elevation training but really need something new to look at.

Had a great run today as I participated in the 2010 OC Half Marathon.  Great support on the course and plenty of nice views.  Had family waiting for me at the finish which is always great motivation.  Looking forward to seeing photos that my friend Oscar took of us all at the end.

**UPDATE – Chip/Tag time was officially 2:03:08.

According to my GPS/watch I ran 13.2 in 2:03:09 (avg. 9:19 miles). The extra tenth was most likely due to the lines I took trying to move around other runners and get over to the water stations. Chip times will not be published until later today. Once I get that information I’ll update the post with my official time.

This is definitely an event I would do again.  Maybe Lena and I can run it together next year.  By together I mean start together…and watch as she pulls away from the start.

These guys take pairs of the Nike Free Run and modify them to make sounds. First video below is behind the scenes of how they did it. Watch that before the second video of the actual performance. Had I not seen what they did, I would have thought the video was faked. Enjoy.

As our family started making smarter choices with regards to food, we often find ourselves choosing organic items over a similar non-organic one. Being somewhat of a cynic, I wondered if the items labeled as “organic” truly were.

First, a bit of information on the process a business must go through in order to put that little sticker on their product:

A grower or handler seeking organic certification submits an Organic Farm Plan or an Organic Handling Plan to a USDA-accredited private or state certification program. The Organic Plan must detail all current growing or handling methods and any materials that will be used. The Plan also covers future intentions and improvements to all areas of production.

Even growers or harvesters of organic wild crops, such as fiddlehead ferns, must develop a Plan showing that harvesting practices will not be destructive to the environment or to the future productivity of the crop.

Five-year records must be kept of all management practices and materials used in organic production.

In addition to assessing the Organic Plan, the certification agency performs annual on-site inspections of each farm or handling operation participating in its program. Certification is then either awarded or denied. User fees are collected from each grower or handler to cover the cost of the certification program. Source

Ok, so it looks like a “pay to play” scenario for some of the larger producers of organic fare. What I don’t know is how much that fee is. According to owners of smaller farms (those that you would typically find in a local farmers market) the organic certification often costs too much money. This helps explain why organic is almost always more expensive..someone has to pay for the certification and re-certification process each year. More often than not these smaller growers will label their items as “chemical free” or “pesticide free” since they don’t have the legal rights to call themselves organic under the current regulation. On one hand I agree with charging a fee so that funds are collected to employ inspectors to keep growers honest. On the other hand, if having that organic label helps small growers sell, they need to be able to afford it. Read more…

Next week is the official start of my marathon program. This will be a 16 week endeavor that ends with running The San Francisco Marathon. Ended this week with a couple laps around the lake.