R.I.P. Christopher















I'm too shocked to really say anything right now, but my friend Christoper Tucker, who was the singer and songwriter for the Philadelphia band The Situation passed away on July 25th. I put out his band's two CDs, The Reece Nasty EP and The Situation on my label, Elephant Stone Records, and I'll always remember the times that I hung out with them, especially when The Situation played an Elephant Stone Records showcase at The Beachland in Cleveland with The Volta Sound and New Planet Trampoline and the great post-gig party we had at our place afterwards. R.I.P. Christopher and I hope you're in a better place. Love, Ben.

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Going Pro! :-)

No, I'm not quitting my day job any time soon, but I did win $50 for being the second master at today's Johnnycake Jog 5 mile race. Kind of cool to lose my prize money virginity so to speak. Not too many guys out there have made $ from both sports and rock 'n' roll. This was one of Ohio's premiere road racing events on the Grand Prix circuit. I was 33rd overall in a deep field full of lots of fast open, high school, and college runners. I didn't feel my best, and the 80F temperature and pea soup like humidity didn't help, but I ran a pretty solid, even paced race hitting 28:42. Splits were: 5:40, 5:55 (big hill), 5:40, 5:43, 5:44. The last mile and a half felt like a death march, but I was able to hold form and finish with good even paced splits, even while feeling like I was about to pass out. All and all I've had a good first half of the year, lowering my 2007 5K PR from 17:22 to 16:57 and my 2007 5 mile PR from 28:53 to 27:51. Over the next six weeks I'm going to take a break from racing and just get back to some good old base building. My plan is to follow a Jack Daniels (the coach not the whiskey!) schedule for the next 4 weeks and build up my mileage with a weekly tempo and repetition workout (economy stuff like 8 x 400 w/400 jog) and then I'll follow the 12 week Pfitzinger 8k/10K program and try to run a kick ass 10K PR on my 44th birthday on Sunday, November 9th at the Ann Arbor Turkey Trot.

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Denim - The Osmonds

Live performance from the underrated Brit Pop group back in 1992 on the UK show "Later With Jools Holland". This song always makes me feel nostalgic about my '70s childhood even though a lot of the reference points here are from a British perspective.

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Spiritualized - Soul On Fire (Edit)

First single from their long awaited new album, first in five years. Based on this, I'll probably buy the CD soon. Yes, I still buy CDs -- music is meant to be played loud on nice stereos.

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Bay Days 5 mile - 27:51

I seem to be on a nice roll now. Three weeks ago I lowered my masters 5K PR from 17:18 down to 16:57.6 and yesterday I ran 27:51 for 5 miles at the Bay Days race. Last year in the same race in similar weather conditions, I ran 28:53, so I'll definitely take a 62 second improvement in one year at my age! I was the third master and 13th overall. Next up for me is the Johnnycake Classic 5 mile race in two weeks. This is a super competitive race and it's certified so hopefully I can PR again if it's not too hot. After that I think I'll take a month or so off of racing before hitting the Celebrate Westlake 5 Miler on Labor Day Weekend.

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