Baltimore Bound

What a memorable road trip - last Thursday Tanner and I left Eugene for the long flight to Baltimore. At around midnight we finally hit the rack at a hotel in downtown Baltimore in anticipation of heading to Under Armour headquarters as soon as we got up and around on Friday morning. Now for a 14 year old boy, this is a big deal. In the good ol' US of A in today's world, the 14-20 year old demographic basically bleeds UA. The brand is as hot as it gets. Tanner was jacked up to visit the UA campus. I had to mostly talk business when I was there, and while doing so he scored tons of killer gear. From new UA stuff that isn't even out yet, to an authentic, J. Jones, running back for the Cowboys, NFL game jersey, to gear he could run his half marathon in the next day (Saturday). It was a productive visit for Tan Man.

We saw a number of athletes and sat and visited with Jeff Samarja, a UA guy and football star last year at Norte Dame (wide receiver). He is now pitching in the Chicago Cubs system. Nice guy, awesome athlete. Also, the U.S. Women's Field Hockey team came through while we were there. Under Armour is an exciting place...I am thankful to be affiliated.

After a great lunch with UA's Kip & Koby Fulks and Jason Hart, we cruised over to Ravens Stadium to pick up our race packets then headed back to the hotel to rest up for the run in the morning.

Race Day -- Tanner smoked the 13.1 mile half marathon in 1 hour 48 minutes (averaging 8 minute 17 second miles), finishing in 3rd place in his age group, getting beat by a runner from Maryland and one from New York. I was real proud of him. It was a hilly, windy course, but he hammered it out. We captured a great photo with Kevin Plank, UA Founder, and the most successful 35 year old I'll probably ever meet. He too ran the half.

I ran the full marathon and kind of sucked it up, 65th out of 2,500+. They pay big money to the top runners of this race, which gets a lot of fast competition in there, $18,000 for first, but I still wasn't impressive -- 5 weeks of no running while I was gone hunting at the end of August and all of September didn't help. I learned one thing -- not running is not the greatest way to prepare for a marathon. Longest, most miserable run of my life. I ran the half in 1:26, which is right where I wanted to be, but had no depth to finish. I ended in 3:03, my worst time of the year. But you know what, life is full of challenges and this one only lasted 3 hours! Like usual, now it seems like it wasn't all that bad...it was a good training run and staying in marathon shape will help me on my deer hunts in November and December. At least it wasn't raining.



Sunday we slept in, got up and had a good breakfast then headed over to the Ravens vs Rams game where we sat in Under Armour's private suite. Unlike the marathon, that did not suck. We had a blast. The Ravens rolled and I can tell you, there is no other NFL'er who has an entrance like Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis. As he comes in the stadium he has 71,000 people in the palm of his hand, it was electric. What a weekend. We got home late Sunday night after a very full weekend. Thought I would share this memorable trip with ya'll. BTW - Tanner bounced back nicely from the half marathon and ran his best time of the year in cross country yesterday at a meet in Elmira. - Cam