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I took part in the Raleigh Rocks half marathon this past weekend. My excitement had been growing, but so had my dread. Having run 10 miles recently, I figured I could finish, but I also figured it was going to be miserable.

I was happily surprised. The run itself didn’t get too tough until about mile 10. People had generally told me that the adrenaline would carry me through the last few miles, it they were pretty much right. The last 1/2 mile was just me telling myself I couldn’t stop now.

So I just ran with all I had left, and I finished in just under 2 hours. Which is what I was shooting for, and it was actually fun. (results)
So am I going to do it again? I’m not sure, I think I may try another half marathon, and a full marathon isn’t entirely out of the question. But I think I’m gonna take it easy on running for the next few weeks, I think I’ve earned that.

BTW, the nerd that I am, I actually managed to twitter from the race… see the tweet. I actually have been getting great support from fellow twitterers, mostly from Maddy Hubbard.

Since the new year I’ve been quite busy at work. We had a release on the 14th which went well, and now we have another one this Monday. It’s been a lot of work preparing our Client Services and Sales teams for our new pricing options. Happily, most of the work is now done.

But it’s definitely taken its toll. I’ve been working a fair number of nights and just haven’t been able to get stuff done. The house is a bit messy, and my home office is a disaster. But I hope to have a bit more time to get things in order around here.

Aside from that drudgery, I have some interesting news. I’m now training for a half marathon. That’s right, I really don’t know why i would do that, but I am. It’s in April, but I’ve already been running quite a bit lately, and I’ve even done a 5 mile run, which is a record for me. I have a bit more fun and cool about running to talk about, but that will have to wait for another post.

Take care all!

Yes, I’ve been far to lax in my posting lately. Probably the biggest reason was my vacation. I went away with Jill to St. Lucia for my sister’s wedding. It was amazing. The wedding was beautiful (pictures forthcoming) and the island was amazing. We stayed at Ladera for the first half, and that really couldn’t have been better. The second half we stayed at Anse Chastenet, which was enjoyable, but not as nice as Ladera (Full reviews forthcoming as well).

Obviously a wedding is a big deal; we’re very happy to have Justin as legal member of the Covati family, but there is some other big news that came of this trip…

Jill and I are now engaged! Yup, that’s right, I finally popped the question on our last night at Ladera. It was quite romantic, and went off without a hitch thanks to the great staff at Dashenee (the restaurant at Ladera).

I’ll fill you all in on details of the proposal, wedding, vacation, and resorts in due time.

…And life goes on. I’ve just signed on to a new company, Bronto. This is a big move - well, I’m not sure when a new job isn’t. But I’ve been flying back and forth to Boston for the last 9 months, and now that’s coming to an end. I’m happy to have found a company in my new home town that focuses on email marketing; something I have become very passionate about over the last couple of years.

This may come as a surprise for some people, heck, it came as a surprise for me. I’m very excited though, it’s always a blast to join a new company. You get to learn new products, people, and challenges. Bronto is very promising, they have a great app and a lot of people who are very excited about what they do. What more can you ask?

I am back home, and pretty much back in this time zone too. I still have a lot of work to figure out which of the 100s of pictures to post from the remainder of my trip. I just spent a few minutes and re-organized the photo album into sub albums for easier navigation of pics. I have also spent some time adding in more of the places I visited on my google maps page. That is a very cool tool, I’ll be updating that to have more pics and links soon as well.

All and all, the trip was well worth it, if you have a chance to go to India, do it. No questions. Even if it is for a short period. Any regrets? Yeah, I wish I had more time in Pune, the guys in our office there were awesome, and I’d love to get to see the sites around there. I also wish I had time to go to Goa, and maybe spend more time in Agra as well. I meant some great people in Jaipur who went to the Taj 4 or 5 times, they caught it at sunrise and sunset, and said it was stunning. I was amazed at 3 in the afternoon, so I can only imagine.

So like I said, I’ll be posting more pics and also a few more blog entries with more details on the my travels within Jaipur, Delhi, and Agra. Please check back, I personally think it’s much more interesting to hear the story behind the pics, and I plan to show that even more than I have in my other blog entries.

Take care, Adam

Update: I’ve introduce this logo (actually lifted from the google earth page) that will link to current My Maps in the future.

Well, I think this is my first transcontinental post, though I may have posted from France at one point. Either way, this is my first time on the Asian sub-continent. It’s been an experience getting here, and I don’t have a lot of time before I have to head out to catch my flight to Pune. It was a long trip in here, my flight to JFK from Raleigh was delayed, so I had to run to catch my connection. Then I had a 6 hour flight to Heathrow, then 8.5 hours to Mumbai (aka Bombay). The flights were quite cozy since I was flying world traveler on British airways. I have some pics that I’ll try to upload later.

The fun part was landing in Mumbai, I knew that would be quite the experience. It was made even more fun by extending my stay in the airport. You see, although I ran to catch my connection to Heathrow, it seems my bag didn’t. So it’s not here with me. Finally I got to the hotel room around 2:00AM local time, that’s around 4:30PM EDT. Having only slept a few hours total on the trip I was a bit tired.

The trip from the airport to the hotel was very interesting. A lot of this area is pretty poor. I saw quite a few people sleeping on the sidewalk. Lots of interesting colorful places though. I’ll try to take some pics on the way back to the airport.

I went out today for an hour to a market to buy some clothes, since all I have is what I wore over right now. It was much more interesting to sit in the auto-rickshaw during the day than a car at night. The people and stores are very colorful and the markets are full of fresh produce and people selling wares. It’s pretty amazing, somewhat similar to the markets I’ve seen in St. Lucia and Costa Rica.

I have to say that after a long flight, and losing my luggage I was a bit worried. I’ve been apprehensive for the last few days, worrying about finding my way around or getting hassled. But today was really good, I think this trip will turn out great! :) Of course there’s lots more to talk about, but I only have 1 hour of net access and I have to respond to some emails. I just wanted to post a little update and some pics.

Update: I have just created an India Gallery, all my latest pics will be posted there.

In honor of the changing of my blog software I thought I’d talk ab it about Web 2.0. I think it’s important to realize that it’s not just a buzzword and rounded corners on image. There is a lot to the revolution of the web, it’s mass media controlled and created by the masses, instead of just marketed to them. You’re viewing it right now, and you’re creating it with every click as well… well, not every click…

This video that I found via LifeClever is a wonderfull take on Web 2.0, well thought out and wonderfully delivered.

I’ve been in San Francisco over the last few days for work. I wish I could spend more time out here, it’s such a great city. Last night my cousin Steph met up with me. She took me on a bit of a tour of the city, including a walk through china town (so fun!), and a drive down Lombard S(so curvy!), as well as the embarcadero. We finished off with a great dinner at the Stinking Rose (so garlicy!). There was more, but I have to get ready for my flight home. I’ll leave you with the view from my hotel…