NEW MATT STRINGER.COM

So it's been quiet here at The Stringdom. With summer vacations and preparations for the arrival of the baby in November, I've missed the past couple of 5k's at the DSE. But one of the things I have been up to is redesigning my illustration website. It's now got a whole new look, as well as a few new illustrations and poems. So click here to check it out. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

WALT STACK 5K

4th race of the season was last weekend and it netted a new personal best. Coming oh-so-close to my goal of breaking 20 minutes, I finished at 20:04, which was a 5 second improvement on my previous best time of 20:09 a few years back, and a 42 second improvement over the last race a few weeks back. Other than the Easter Roller Coast race I've seen a steady improvement in my times each time out, which is encouraging. In this last race, out of 95 runners I finished 10th overall and 4th in my age group (30-39). Next race is 5/27.

EMBARCADERO 5K

Last weekend was my 3rd 5k race of the season. This one was back down at the Embarcadero and a similar course to the Waterfront 5k that I ran back in March. After the very slow time I ran 2 weeks ago, due to the hilly course in the Presidio, I rebounded nicely with my fastest time of the year so far, breaking 21 minutes. My time, 20:46, was actually my 2nd fastest 5k ever, only bettered by the 20:09 I ran a few years back. Out of 111 runners I finished 20th overall and 5th in my age group (30-39). Next race is 5/6.

EASTER ROLLER COASTER 5K

So my second 5k race of the season was last weekend. As the name of the race implies, the course was really hilly, and like riding on a roller coaster, I sort of felt like puking at the end. The course started at the west end of Mountain Lake Park before moving along the south edge of the Presidio golf course, up to the Presidio gate on Pacific Avenue before turning around and returning the same way. The first 50 or so yards that I could see from the starting line looked easy enough but I knew I was in for it when the race director described at the start, "We go up a hill and then down and then up another hill and then turn around and return. It's really tough." That was an understatement. The series of 4 hills kicked my butt. Below are the official results. Out of 111 runners I finished 35th overall and 9th in my age group (30-39). My time was actually about 3 minutes slower than my first race back in the beginning of March. So that wasn't entirely encouraging but I chalk that up more to the course than my conditioning. Or at least I hope. We'll find out at the next race which looks like will be on 4/22.

LIFE OF A NBA BALLER

Over the years I've had the opportunity to experience some pretty sweet sporting events first hand. In 2000 I attended the NBA All-Star game in Oakland and witnessed a collection of the best basketball players in the world on the same court. In 2001 I went to Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa and watched Baltimore crush the NY Giants. While the Super Bowl and even the All-Star game were once in a lifetime experiences the trips I've taken with the Golden State Warriors the past 2 years have been more of an insider's experience. Most recently, last weekend I got to fly with the Warriors on the team's charter plane up to Portland for their game against the Blazers. Getting to travel with the team you learn a few things about the life of an NBA player:

1. Flying on a charter plane beats commercial by a mile.

2. Thanks to the player's union you only stay in 4 or 5 star hotels. This is written into the CBA (collective bargaining agreement). As a result on our trip we ended up staying in the Benson Hotel, which is apparently where the President stays when he visits Portland. Not too shabby.

3. When on the road you must use an alias when you check in at the before mentioned 4 or 5 star hotel (presumably to thwart the groupies and autograph seekers). Some of the better aliases used by some of the Warriors were Rick James & Bart Simpson.

4. It's good to be a NIKE guy in Portland. We got invited to the Nike Employee Store in Beaverton where they have all the latest Nike gear not yet out in the stores and all for 50% off. Of course if you are actually a player under contract with Nike you get it all for free.

5. Even if you get blown out by an inferior team, in a game you really had to win to keep pace in the playoff race, you still get a steak dinner on the charter flight back home and your Bentley, Rolls or Benz is still waiting for you in the private lot when you land. Win or lose, life is good.

On the game itself, Baron Davis, or B. Dizzle according to the hotel roster, was a last minute scratch and the Warriors played terribly without him. As the TV play-by-play guy joked on the media bus after the game, "We should just run a scroll at the bottom of the screen reminding the viewers: WITH BARON GOOD, WITHOUT BARON BAD." And they were bad. Stephen Jackson didn't disappoint either, living up to the semi-crazy rep he's gotten the past couple of years stemming from his role in the Palace brawl, by getting a technical for tossing the ball at the ref's feet and then getting tossed from the game for continuing to argue the call. On the Portland side, Brandon Roy should clearly be the rookie of the year. He was the best player on the court. Despite their record the Blazers actually have some nice young talent on their squad. And since they are in the western conference if you translated their record to the east they probably would be in the playoff mix (see the Toronto Raptors). So a stinker of a game but a fun trip. Of course Baron was back last night at home and the Warriors routed the Mavs ending their 17-game winning streak. With Baron good...living the NBA lifestyle even better.

WATERFRONT 5K

So I won't announce this with as much fan fare as the miracle mile attempt which I fell flat on my face with last year, but I've decided to get back on the horse and dust off the running sneaks. Though, this time instead of targeting a 4:59 mile, because there doesn't seem to be any mile races in spring or summer, I'm hopping on board the 5k circuit. 5k, or 3.1 miles, is the next distance up from the mile and they are much more plentiful in terms of the number of races.

To prove, to myself, that I'm more serious about sticking with the running this time I decided to join a running club called Dolphins South End Runners. They are one of the better-established running clubs in SF, having been around for 40 years. They have races almost every weekend, not all 5k's necessarily, but are fairly low key stressing personal bests and the social element of having fun + running. And since their motto is "Start slow and taper off" which pretty much described my attempt last year to resurrect the running regime I figured it was a good fit.

So yesterday, after only really training 2 weeks, I ran my first 5k down on the Embarcadero. Out of 110 runners I finished 16th overall and 4th in my age group (30-39). Ironically enough my time, 21:13, was actually the identical time to the last 5k race I ran back in 2003 during the original running regime. So not a bad first effort, though well off the winning pace. Here are the complete results:



When I was actually running consistently a few years back, which I detailed in the previous Miracle Mile post, my best 5k time was 20:09. So I'm hoping over time as I get in shape to try to better that mark. Next race I'm tentatively targeting is on 4/8. More updates to follow.

BACK TO SINGAPORE

Wrapping up the trip, we rolled out of KL Saturday morning and a 6-hour bus ride later we arrived back in Singapore that afternoon. After being turned away from the hostel we originally stayed at on the front end of the trip because it was full we ended up finding a better place just down the road but still in the Bugis Village/Little India quarter. Since we were departing for home the next day our only two main objectives were to go see Raffles Hotel, named after Sir Stamford Raffles the founder of Singapore, and then make it to the night safari. Time permitting I was also hoping we could make our way back to Chinatown to make a return trip to this great dim sum stall we had eaten a week ago when we first arrived. We successfully went 3-3.

After cruising by Raffles Hotel where there really isn't much to do other than look at it, and since we or rather I wasn't appropriately dressed since apparently gentlemen must be wearing long pants to enter the hotel if they are not guests we just took the obligatory pic from the exterior and then made our way to Chinatown in search of dim sum. The weather was a little spotty, which if you've noticed has been the running theme of the trip. Having learned our lesson in KL, when it really started to open up we simply found a dry covering and waited a few minutes for it to subside. The rain passed, at least temporarily, and we were chowing down on some shrimp dumplings, pot stickers and sipping on a refreshing homemade green apple fruit drink in no time.

After re-fueling we made our way back to the hostel to double check our game plan for the night safari (if you recall, which you probably don't since it's been over a month since I wrote about the first visit to Singapore, we unsuccessfully tried to make it to the night safari on the front end of the trip). But this time even rain, which was coming down at a pretty good clip most of the subway and then 45-minute bus ride to the safari, didn't deter us. By the time we arrived the rain had slowed down. And since it was a Saturday night it was pretty crowded even with the rain. The night safari set up was much more Disney world than I expected, complete with the gift shops, performances and a covered tram that takes you around the safari. That being said, it was still pretty cool. The safari itself is an hour-guided tour on the tram. At the midway point you can also get out and walk on paths to check out some other vantage points of the animals. But we saw everything from lions, tigers, elephants, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, even capybaras which are the world's largest rodents that live in South America and which we saw when in Bolivia. Each section of the safari was a different geographical habitat. So you moved from the Himalayan foothills to Africa to Asia to South America, etc. Quite nicely done and our guide mixed in some eco-propaganda that forced the captive audience to ponder our impact on the animal world. Nothing like making tourists pay to get lectured. What really makes it great is that since it's a night safari in some cases you can't really even see the barrier protecting you from the animals and so often you felt quite close, almost too close, to the animals. Unfortunately there was no flash photography, and they were serious about it actually stopping the tram several times when people snapped pics, so we didn't get any photos of the animals. But if you want to see what we would have photographed, you can click here to check out some of the animals.

The next morning we packed up and made our way to the airport for our long flight home. Note if you ever are stuck in the Taipei airport with a couple hour layover, like we had, they have free massage chairs. Just ask for the tokens in the duty free shops. That's it, sorry for the long delay in getting all the posts up. The trip was a blast; we're already planning our next adventure.