Being a big fan of RSS feeds and having information in the “cloud”, I’m a perpetual Google Reader user.

I think the latest Google Reader enhancement of offering a place to comment on shared items and respond back creates an interesting and educational dialogue between friends.

It’s like a mini-FriendFeed except your friends don’t have to sign up for a new service. They don’t have to do anything they don’t normally do, other than click the “Share” button on items.

My only point is, I want more friends on Google Reader.

I like reading what my friends are reading. I may skim or ignore some stuff, but as I said (via Google Reader comments) recently, seeing/reading what people share is a window into how they think.

Also, since I tend to over index on tech news, it is always good to read about other topics that my friends find important.

Today, I read a short post along these lines on inessential.com. I completely agree with the following statement:

I’d rather hear what any of my friends says on any topic, rather than what people I don’t know say about a specific article. And I think that’s more and more true for more people, now that we’ve all seen what on-site comments are like, and how they’re getting worse.

Inessential.com isn’t a blog I subscribe to. How did I come across this post? Was I trying to find more friends via Google?

No. Louis Gray’s Shared Items feed. I don’t know Louis Gray personally, but he is a prolific sharer (is that a word?) and happens to consume a lot of information I find intriguing.

You know what I would find even more fascinating?

Anything shared by someone I know in real life.

Yesterday, I ran my first half marathon. And possibly my last.

Not to say it wasn’t a good experience, but I don’t really enjoy running in a non-team sports context.

My wife, who previously ran the Marine Corps Marathon in 2007, also ran the half marathon.

Lessons learned:

• Probably should eat healthy the day before the run. My pre-race meals consisted of:

  Cereal

  Wawa Pankcake, Egg, and Sausage Breakfast sandwich (delicious!)

  Wendy’s Spicy Chicken sandwich and a small chili

  Whole wheat pasta, spinach, red pepper, and crab cakes (thanks to Ed and @mcbeth528)

• Training is actually important. I stopped training about a month before the race. That’s not really considered a taper. Part of the problem was dropping a knife on my foot (2 weeks before the race). The other part was laziness.
• Even after seeing the finish line during the race, all I wanted to do was walk. See my point about training above.
• Don’t sign up for a race which requires you to train during the winter. Any combination of cold, dark, or rain/ice/snow does not encourage running. Don’t tell me to run on a treadmill. Anyone who has tried it knows (but may not want to admit) that it is a horrible activity. Also, see my point about not training above.
• Irish stew and Yuengling is a wonderful post-race meal, even at 9:30 AM.

I wanted to finish in under 2 hours, but probably shouldn’t complain about 2:02:10.

All in all, we had a good time. We got to hang out in Virginia Beach the night before the race with Ed and @mcbeth528. We appreciate their hospitality and excellent pre and post race food (eggs with goat cheese after running = yummy).
It was definitely a different and exciting weekend for us and I look forward to cheering @mjrnows on in many future races. She’s running the Marine Corps Marathon this October, possibly to raise money for Jill’s House.