Place info
Overall: 413 out of 815
Age Group: 14 of 17
Gender: 147 out of 159

Official Race Results Here

First off, yes, I know I haven’t blogged about anything in ages. But I’ve been busy, and it’s fairly obvious nobody except me reads them anyway, so I only have to blog about what I want a record of for my own personal reasons anyway.

Now, to the race.
In case it isn’t fairly obvious. I’m not running very well anymore. I signed up to the Double Decker Spring Run after deciding to bow out of the Country Music Marathon this year. (Which apparently was a Monsoon on Saturday). I keep up a weekly running schedule, but to be honest, the intensity isn’t like it used to be. I need to work on that.

So, this is my first race since the GumTree 10k Last year. So almost a year without a race. That is part of the reason my intensity has fallen off. Less Miles over the winter, etc. etc. etc.

That all leads to some tough miles in the Double Decker 10k. I started off alright, slower than typical for a race for me, but faster than my training runs. But the Double Decker 10k course is tough. A lot tougher than I thought it would be. Pretty much anywhere in Oxford you have to contend with hills, but this one definitely feels like it tries to put in extra ones. That’s completely opposite of Gum Tree. Which is the only other 10k I’ve done.

That led to another revelation. I had to walk some of the hills on the course in the last half of the race. Which for a 10k walking any of it was disappointing. In the end, I came in at 1:07:27 which I suppose isn’t terrible. But isn’t great either. 10:52 per mile is like over a minute per mile slower than I was running for GumTree.

It did remind me of the fun part of running though. I have done so much training over the last year and never could work out a race as stuff kept coming up. I’m going to start training a little harder and getting back my running mojo. I really think I need to do a fall half or full. Probably only half, but I would still like to do a full. I’m also going to do a fun 5k with my daughter over the summer, so I’ll be getting in some extra miles as I help her train for that. Maybe it’ll come back to me soon.

In any case, here they are, presented with comment.

Dimes

Harry’s Grand Slam Baseball — Will likely always be a dime, as I probably play this game more than anyone else on the planet due to it being our lunchtime staple at work.

Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization — All plays probably completely online (Maybe one of those is F2F). But this is a great game, and one I’m glad is on the list. I need to get that same crew into Reef Encounter online too so it will hit this list every year. Can you play Age of Steam online anywhere?

Risk Legacy — Of course all of these plays are due to the world changing. I actually have a post in the works about the game, but I’ve never hit the publish button, because I wanted a bit of time to refine it.

Fives

Jungle Speed — Most of these plays are with the kids, or visitors. It’s a quick game, can be entertaining to play, but can also wear out its welcome. I only think it’s okay, but the kids love it, and I got it for insane cheap on clearance.

7 Wonders — Hard to see this not hitting at least the fives for several years to come, quick to play, easy to teach.

Scrabble — Likely every one of these plays is a Words with Friends play that I log as scrabble, I kind of dropped out of playing WWF though since it takes up so much time deceptively if you have a lot of games going, plus it’s pissing me off lately with the always wanting to log in to facebook, can’t I just say no once and leave it, do you have to ask me every time I open the app?

The Resistance — A favorite game of mine, this one is werewolf like but in a small package. It is also playable with less players, and although I like werewolf with a small number of players, it requires some skill to play in those smaller games. And the big games are hard to get together sometimes. This is the solution to all those problems.

Werewolf — And Werewolf, didn’t get to play it all that much in 2012 because I tended to sleep at decent times at the conventions I did go to, and skipped a few that I like. But it did make the five list, and is probably my favorite game ever due to the infinite re playability and complexity levels that are enormously tweak-able.

And there you have it. I’ll send these to Mark Jackson as soon as he’s ready.

Im still not all in for the Mississippi Blues marathon. I’ve been doing the training but I haven’t registered. I think I’m dropping to the half though. My knee seems to kill me after about 10 miles lately. Nothing concrete yet. I intend to register for it within the next week.

So, I decided to follow the MO I’ve been using for cons lately, the one that lets you only take the days of the con off, but still get a good bit of gaming on that first day. So I took off work Thursday & Friday, and was going to get up at 2:00 to head out the Dallas, TX.

Woke up right at about 2:00, and was on the road by 2:30. It was also my first road trip with the Stang. So I was kind of stoked about that. But I’ve discovered at least on the way there, I might want some sort of Lumbar support, as the seat started hurting my back after a while.

After arriving in Dallas around 10:30, I used my phone to try to find the new hotel. After being unsuccessful until noon, I called the hotel, and figured out it was on Airport grounds. Should have paid closer attention to that before I left.

THURSDAY
First of all I want to state I had no gameplay goals for the con at all. I am more interested in socializing with old friends, than making sure I play certain games. As such, my playlist is kind of sparse.

I had intended to get in and settle for a bit, maybe take a short nap from all the driving and little sleep the night before so that I could be fresh before my first scheduled game of the con. Because of the delay finding the hotel, this was not possible, and right off the bat, ended up sitting down and teaching a game of Die Macher. If you know me at all you know I love this game. I had a little trouble teaching (Thanks to the players for being understanding) and my rules were kind of sporadic mainly due to drowsiness. I didn’t do so hot and actually ended up in third or fourth, but it was a 40 pt swing from first to fifth, and only a 4 point swing from third to fifth. I think everyone enjoyed it.

We went to dinner with most of the other werewolf crew shortly after that. We spent a lot of time socializing and talking. And when returning to the hotel, I mainly wandered around looking at the layout etc. I went back to ‘Werewolf Hollow’ and played a game there before getting up and wandering a bit more and turning a few games down because of sleepiness. I went to bed at midnight.

FRIDAY
Woke up fairly early Friday morning and decided to hit the gym for a run. Not too long, only about 3.5 miles, but enough to help me feel refreshed for my first full day at the con.

After showering and cleaning up, and heading out to find some breakfast, I came back and found some of the werewolfers also with an early start to the day. I rounded up five and managed to get them into a game of my hybrid copy of Battlestar Galactica. (I don’t like the expansions, but I do add a couple of minor things from the Pegasus expansion.

Now again, that’s not a new game, so no real thoughts on it. I enjoyed it and I think the others did too, there were a couple of new players. The game was really close and came down to the wire, and in the end, we (I was a human) ended up having to take a 50/50 die roll shot to win the game, otherwise we were going to lose to JV and KS on the next turn. Unfortunately, we lost, and conceded the game to the toasters because we had no population left.

I had to work my library shift on Friday afternoon, and so, after BSG I wandered around the dealer room a bit but couldn’t commit to any games. Went to the library at 3:00 to begin my 2hr library shift. It’s always a fun time, you get to meet new people, and have fun chatting and joking about the games people are checking in and out, and in general figure out what people are playing or are interested in.

It’s also how I found myself in my first new game of the con. After our shift someone checked in Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar Game. It was an interesting worker placement game where the board had these gears where you could place your workers and they would move on the gears to later areas. The timing was important, because you could pay money to put them close to the powerful spaces early, or you could put them on the cheap spaces, and let the gears move them to the powerful spaces, but it took longer. It was an interesting idea, and was executed very well. But in the end, still typical worker placement translated into victory points.

After the Mayan Calendar game thing, it was time to renew my bid to become BGG.con poker champion. I’ve played in this tournament every year I’ve been to BGG.con, which I just figured out is all but the first year, and last year. I have a decent track record.

• 2006 – 11th (I was the final bust out before the final table, got nothing for it)
• 2007 – Out in 1st hour (I was upset from the year before because I played for four hours and got nothing out of it, I decided to go all in or bust in 2007 to ensure I ended early.)
• 2008 – Out in 3nd hour (After a misguided idea about the poker tournament in the first two years, I decided to try my best again, I made it over halfway, but was still out sometime in the third hour)
• 2009 – Final Table (9th) (Played some pretty good poker, but was short stacked most of the tournament, rode the short stack and played smart into the Final table, but didn’t have many bullets to do anything and busted out in 9th.
• 2010 – Out in 2nd Hour (Again, decided I would play hard, but sometimes the cards don’t cooperate with you, busted out literally just before the first break.)
• 2011 – Missed BGG.con
• 2012 – Ahh, so 2012, I decided to play hard, but started on a pretty tough table where nobody played poorly and busted out and chips were tough to come by. By the time of the first break, I was on a short stack and wasn’t sure I’d make it very long after that. After the break, some people finally started busting out of our table, and bringing some fresh chips in, a couple of good hands, and a couple of good betting moves with not so good hands let me build my stack up a little bit and I worked my stack hard trying to make good decisions as the field dwindled to about 20. I had about 17,000 chips when I got an AJ and put in a bet of 3k (with 500, 1k blinds), and got one caller behind me going to the flop, The flop dropped KK2 and I pushed and was Instacalled, which I knew meant I was doomed as the caller had KQ. I had him covered though and survived with about 7k in chips. I built that 7k back up to about 20k carefully and slowly and with one double up (I pushed with AT caller behind had A4, and my hand held) and rode a short stack into the final table. I played conservatively on the final table, but was short stacked and waited for cards, got an AT and pushed, but was up against a caller with AA which spelled my final doom. I finished in 7th. I got another set of Copag cards just like I got in 2009.

I ended Friday with a game of werewolf before going to bed, as it was around 1:30 when I busted out of poker anyway.

SATURDAY
I woke up early Saturday morning as I had scheduled to be a seller in the Flea Market. I found a table spot and managed to move almost all of the stuff I had brought. I held my self though and didn’t really pick up anything except one I had kind of been looking for.

Surburbia was interesting, but I was kind of zonked out, and we were in the darkest corner of the hot games room. I zoned out a bit during the rules explanation, but it seemed fairly straightforward. It is a tile ‘auction’ type game where you are building a city competing with the others on the table a la ‘Simcity’ computer game. But it’s not really solitaire, because you have these goals you are working towards and things your opponent places in his city can affect the income and reputation levels of your city. It was interesting, but I’m not sure if I liked it or not, thinking back, I think I did. I definitely liked it better than the Mayan calendar thing.

After Suburbia, I took about 5 hours to go up to the room and relax a bit and watch the Ole Miss vs LSU game. This isn’t a football blog post, but the Rebels almost pulled off an amazing upset. Two bad turnovers and a horrible breakdown in punt coverage sealed their fate though.

After the game I went down to the werewolf rooms where some friends were setting up A Game of Thrones, it had been years since I played the game, and they said they were going to learn and had someone coming to teach them and needed a fifth, so I joined. When their teacher came, I recognized him as someone I had played with in 2007 when he ran over the whole board with his army which he called the ’8th Panzer Division’ I was Tyrell, with my AM and RK playing Lannister and Greyjoy respectively. The 8th panzer guy was Stark, and his friend was Baratheon. My play started out being biased against Stark for the first part of the game, although trying to set up a truce line with Baratheon didn’t gain any traction and I was chased from my starting area and down to a hurt level early. After that I used my limited resources to work with my werewolf friends in any way to ensure that one of them would win rather than the person that pushed me to the edge of defeat. In the end Lannister one in Turn 6 with 7 castles.

I ended Saturday playing several games of werewolf and a couple of games of Telestrations, before heading to bed at around 4:00.

SUNDAY
I didn’t intend to do much Sunday, I woke up and packed and was going to head out fairly early, but wanted to pick something up in the Dealer room before I left. It didn’t open till 10 so I hung out until around that time and went in.

While making a last swing, I decided to sit down and try Escape: The Curse of the Temple as I heard it was very fun and only took 10 minutes to play. After a brief rules explanation, we gave it a shot, and sure enough, I had a good time playing it. It’s very light, and very luck based with only a few decisions, but it’s frantic, played by everyone simultaneously, and requires pretty good teamwork to overcome the games obstacles. I’m not sure if the game has any lasting power, but I was entertained in my one game of it.

After that I headed out, and headed home.

Then I went to bed.

zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Chris

But a five mile trail run on Tuesday gave me this one. I didn’t run on Sunday, I was tired, and my knees were killing me.

This song is beautiful, I don’t care that it’s not all that conducive to running, When I’m running so slow it doesn’t really matter on the pacing anyway.

Unfortunately, can’t find that one on youtube, so I’m going to have to link it over to soundcloud. I haven’t had a chance to listen to this one yet, so I don’t know if it’s the same mashup I have on my iPod or not.

Cheers, and Go Rebs, Beat Auburn!

All this amounted to me skipping my Sunday 3 mi recovery run. I just wasn’t feeling it, and didn’t really do much of anything on Sunday. I wanted to mow the lawn as well, but that wasn’t happening (and still hasn’t, I’m hoping to do that this evening).

So, what makes this a double edition, is that I ran on Tuesday for the first time since the 14 mi run. It was actually quite pleasant. I did a 4mi trail run at whirlpool, but I also did it sans iPod, so I don’t really have a best song from that run. I don’t do that very often, but every once in a while, I like to do so just so I get a feel for my breathing, etc.

*I like to run with my iPod, but I don’t like fixed playlists, so I typically shuffle everything I own in iTunes that I’ve tagged with the comment running (This keeps out comedy routines, or other various miscellaneous things that I have in iTunes.) I also disallow anything that’s been played within the last month. So it is usually a very eclectic mix of music that I hear. What I choose as the BSOTR may not necessarily be my favorite song, or the one I liked the most while I ran, but it might have played at a tough time, or been timely, or funny, etc.

I do think I’ll probably retire the orange shoes very soon. I don’t think they will make it but maybe barely past 250. But I won’t know until such time as I actually retire them.

I think I’ll run my easy recovery run on the Whirlpool trail tomorrow.

As far as the song. I always liked this song. I can play the rhythm part on guitar, can’t do much with the solo or anything yet though. But it’s not like I’ve tried too. It was kind of an easy pick, in 12 miles, I didn’t really hear a lot I liked a lot today. Only okay stuff. I guess that happens sometimes.

*I like to run with my iPod, but I don’t like fixed playlists, so I typically shuffle everything I own in iTunes that I’ve tagged with the comment running (This keeps out comedy routines, or other various miscellaneous things that I have in iTunes.) I also disallow anything that’s been played within the last month. So it is usually a very eclectic mix of music that I hear. What I choose as the BSOTR may not necessarily be my favorite song, or the one I liked the most while I ran, but it might have played at a tough time, or been timely, or funny, etc.

I put 26.2 on one shoe, and BAMF on the other. The shoes were great. My legs and feet didn’t bother me at all. I’m wondering if I should be replacing the Orange Asics Sky Speeds because of this. But According to my records, I only have 228 miles on them. They should be good for at least another 80-100 miles I would think. But My records from February through July were kind of sketchy, as I started relying on my Nike Sportwatch to track everything at that point, and it started flaking out on me toward the end.

Anyway, back to the Music. I picked Eric Clapton’s version of I Shot the Sheriff. I think Bob Marley’s is more well known, and I like it better, but I have a Clapton CD in iTunes, and that’s the one on my playlist (mainly for ideas about what to learn on guitar). Enjoy!

*I like to run with my iPod, but I don’t like fixed playlists, so I typically shuffle everything I own in iTunes that I’ve tagged with the comment running (This keeps out comedy routines, or other various miscellaneous things that I have in iTunes.) I also disallow anything that’s been played within the last month. So it is usually a very eclectic mix of music that I hear. What I choose as the BSOTR may not necessarily be my favorite song, or the one I liked the most while I ran, but it might have played at a tough time, or been timely, or funny, etc.