Sconzo.com

On February 28, 2009 a group of us from Gold’s Gym in Lawrenceville who train in karate together plunged into the Atlantic Ocean.

The goal of the Seaside Polar Bear Plunge is to raise money and awareness for the Special Olympics of New Jersey. Our team was comprised of 22 members and together we raised $5,787 to benefit the Special Olympics of New Jersey (SONJ). We’ve done this event about six years running and each year is more fun than the previous. Overall, the event raised more than 1.1 million dollars for SONJ. Donations continue to be accepted; please help support the individuals who compete each year: sconzo.com/plunge

At 1pm, 22 of us and about 4,000 other brave souls ran into the water. Some ran in and sprinted right back out. Others lingered for a bit longer. Personally, I lingered, trying to keep people from leaving the water 🙂  I ran into the ocean four times, each time trying to bring more people back into the water. The first time in, I waded around for a bit, capturing video of the other plungers from the ocean.

I used my Canon SD850 IS with its underwater waterproof case (WP-DC15) to capture the video and photos from the ocean.

Each year, our group secures five or six rooms at the Aztec Hotel, which is situated right in front of the plunge spot. They party the whole weekend and they really know how to throw a party. They have food catered, lots to drink and parade as a group out to the plunging area about 30 minutes prior to plunge time. Here’s our group photo from last year:

I didn’t stay long to enjoy the three-day party though, since I’ve got lots of work to do. I arrived a few hours before the 1pm plunge time, so I went for a run along the boardwalk and on the beach. I only put in about three miles. While on the beach, I imitated the scene from Rocky where he runs on the beach with Apollo; of course they ran on the beach on a warm day. My socks and shoes got soaked from the cold water as I was right where the water ran up the beach. I returned to the hotel and left my shoes and socks behind so I could return to the beach for a barefoot run. I headed back along the boardwalk and made my way to the ocean. This time I decided to be crazy and run in the water. The water was cold, but it felt great.

I ran back to the hotel again, and was able to convince Marci to come for another run with me on the beach, barefoot. If you know Marci, then you would be surprised to hear that she agreed to do this. This time, during my run I hit a pothole in the water and took an early plunge — and this was right in front of some spectators. It was pretty funny.

Fun was had by all and we’re anxiously looking forward to next year.

Monday evening I went for a short warm-up run before karate class began. It was snowing and cold, which seemed to keep everyone away except me, so I ran by myself, barefoot in the snow. The trucks were out dropping rock salt. During the last quarter mile of the run, I stepped on a big piece of rock salt, which ended up bruising the bottom of my foot.

Karate training was great — it was just Sensei and me. Spent most of the class working on form: in basics, combinations and kata. When I used to get to train with Sensei one on one, I naively used to expect some “special” secrets to be endowed. True, he shares information, but it’s not some well-kept secret guarded since the dawn of the origins of shotokan. In fact, I find the secrets he shares always have to do with basic principles and good form. I came away from class, once again appreciating the things new students are taught, but with my perspective and experience, understanding them even better. In fact, they are secrets from the origins of shotokan.

I ran my first scheduled long run of the 2009 training season. It was a ten mile run past Mercer Airport over Jacob’s Creek bridge, into Hopewell Township, and back home.

 
(Airport entrance on Bear Tavern Road)

(Jacobs Creek Bridge near Hopewell)

(Welcome to Hopewell Township)

There are a few nice hills along Bear Tavern Road, which took a bite out of my pace after mile five.

1. 8:20
2. 8:20
3. 8:17
4. 8:10
5. 8:12
6. 8:49
7. 8:30
8. 8:34
9. 8:46
10. 8:20

Average pace: 8:26. I must begin speedwork training.

I’ve been doing this race every year on New Year’s day since 2003. It’s a great way to start the year off. The results are posted at compuscore:

http://www.compuscore.com/cs2009/janfeb/hamhang1.htm

At noon, about 400 runners gather at the Kuser Road entrance to Veteran’s Park in Hamilton, NJ to kick off the year with a five mile race. This year it was nice and cold — about 20 degrees at noon so not many people were in shorts or short-sleeve shirts. I didn’t train for this race, but I did improve my time since last year: 35:08, about 30 seconds faster.

I started the race with Bill and the running gang this year. The next event for the group is the 7.2 mile chilly cheeks in PA.

I had a good long run yesterday. A good friend Bill joined me for the 20 mile training run. This was his first 20 mile run and he did awesome. I used gmap-pedometer to map out the course from the Lawrenceville Gold’s gym parking lot, along Village road to Old Trenton Road, then three miles into Mercer Country Park, and back to the starting point.

The weather was perfect! We started the run about 4:30am so there were not many cars on the road and the temperature was still very cool.

Nice Run Bill! Thanks for coming out hours before the sun and putting in the miles with me.

Here are the details and splits. We kicked at the end and pulled off some negative splits. Mile 12 was higher because we stopped for a water and orange slice break.

Elevation Gain (ft): +4,087 / -4,067
Pace: 8:58 mins/mile
Total Time: 3hr 01min 35sec

And here is the route on motion-based, uploaded from my Garmin 405:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6657086

The largest project I’m presently working on at Dow Jones is the adoption of a publishing product from EidosMedia, a technology company in Milan. The product is called Méthode and looks very promising. Here are some article published recently regarding the selection of Méthode at Dow Jones.

Editor and Publisher – June 3, 2008 (requires subscription)
Dow Jones Selects EidosMedia’s Publishing Platform
Editor and Publisher (requires subscription)
E&P Technical: EidosMedia’s U.S. debut
Newspapers and Technology
Dow Jones blending print, Web

[correction- please see my new post]

I’ve done the five mile New Year’s run in Hamilton Veteran’s park for several years. The course follows paved trails for much of the distance. However, shortly after mile one the course turns left onto grass and eventually onto a dirt path, riddled with tree roots and sprinkled with mud puddles after it has rained. At least have of the runs I’ve done on New Year’s have been in the rain or just after a good rain. This always makes the second mile more exciting.

The course traverses three of the four entrances to the park: the start is near Kuser road adjacent to the tennis courts; mile two passes the West entrance adjacent the lake and hospital; mile three takes runners across the North entrance near the Veterans Memorial Plaza and gardens.

Each December I look for a map of the course online, but never seem to find one. So last January, I tucked away one of the paper maps that are distributed prior to the race. My intention was to put it on a website. I came across my paper copy a couple days ago which sparked a memory of my plan. So, I’ve scanned and uploaded the course map. If you’re looking for it, you will find it here. The map is the one provided by the organizers of the race each year.

Hamilton Veterans Park 5 Mile Couse Map Dated 3/24/1986.

See all you runners January 1st at noon.

It seems I’ve come to rely on Quest Toad. Now that I’ve returned to working with Oracle on a regular basis, I have to remind myself how to do things from SQLPLUS when I don’t have TOAD available.

Today I needed to examine the text of a trigger, but I couldn’t remember the view to obtain it from. Here’s the code to spool it to a text file:

-- eliminate row count message
set feedback off
-- eliminate headings from showing
set heading off
-- suppress output
set termout off
-- don't show sql in result set
set echo off
-- keep text body from wrapping
set linesize 1000
-- eliminate trailing blanks
set trimspool on
spool /tmp/trigger.sql
select 'CREATE OR REPLACE ' from dual;
select text from user_source
where name = 'TRIGGERNAME';
select '/' from DUAL;
spool off
set feedback on
set heading on
set termout on
set linesize 100
set echo on

Will Robert Thompson, editor of the Financial Times, be installed as publisher of The Wall Street Journal by Rupert Murdoch? This remains to be seen after News Corporation passes the remaining regulatory hurdles it faces in acquiring Dow Jones. Sources cited by Guardian Unlimited say News Corporation has no official comment.

Link to Article at Guardian Unlimited