I was out at the BAA 10k this past Sunday and put together an interview/highlights video. This was the first video project with my Mac, and although it wasn’t as effortless as I had hoped, it was definitely a marked improvement. With practice, hopefully things get better. I probably went through the entire cuss word dictionary throughout the process, and possibly even invented a few new ones. I’ll save the new vocab for a blog post on a slow news day. So here’s the video:

I basically was learning the iMovie software on my own as I did this, with help from some web searches, so it’s not bad for a beginner (I guess). However, I had a tutorial session at the Apple store this afternoon and I finally figured out how to do all the things I wanted to do with this video. Future videos should hopefully make this one look like a pile of puke.

Back to the race…I was working solo this one, just one man and his (er, his wife’s) camera. I still feel ridiculous conducting business with a pocket sized digital camera, but it gets the job done. As usual, I was a few minutes behind schedule leaving the apartment this morning so I decided to do a walk/jog combo to cover the two miles over to the start line at Boston Common. Not a good idea! My hip was killing me the rest of the day. When I was at church a few hours later, I was asked to help with the collections. To do so, you need to walk to the front and genuflect (basically the same move as a Tebow), and that just so happens to be the one thing that ignites my pain like no other (just my luck!). I almost couldn’t get up. I can’t even Tebow…this sucks.

Once at the race, I got a good position at the start and had some decent footage of the leaders making the turn onto Beacon St. Unfortunately I couldn’t get out to any other points, so I had to wait around for the action to come back to me.

I stopped by the Marathon Sports tent and caught up with the guys over there. It was a good time…too good, in fact; I completely lost track of time and just barely got to the finish area in time. I screwed myself over and was stuck on the wrong side. If I had given myself some more time I totally would’ve grabbed a spot on the other side of the street. Most of the time I was holding the camera up high over the crowd and hoping I had the right angle. Between the crowd and the solar glare, I was operating blind. Looking at the finishing footage though, I think I did alright.

Mutai looked like an absolute beast coming down Charles. That guys is just amazing, and it’s a shame he won’t be running in the Olympics. The rest of the field started coming along, and I stuck around long enough to catch the guys I knew up front and also to see the women’s leaders. After that I had to hustle (in a limping fashion) to find some people for post-race interviews before they scattered for their cool downs, etc.

When I finally did track down some people, they were on the other side of the dreaded security fence. Being an underground establishment, we typically don’t have media passes so I didn’t even bother asking her because I figured she’d say no anyway. Wrong! She wouldn’t even let me stand near the waist high barrier. I know she was just a volunteer doing her job, but come on! It’s not like she’s protecting POTUS, or even watching a gate at the Super Bowl. I was a little surprised by that.

Luckily for me, within seconds I was talking to Jenkins and Sança (still separated by the barrier), and the volunteer let me be after realizing I wasn’t a groupie. After about five minutes or so I happened to see Mike Pieroni come by and he let me in. I can’t thank that guy enough; he’s always been very nice and has helped me out a few times over the years.

Once inside the “VIP” area, it was time to get down to business. Business required me to pull out the aforementioned spy camera, which got more than a few odd looks from the people there with the serious equipment.

I decided to go with the roundtable discussion for the local crew for a couple of reasons: I didn’t think  I had enough time to get to all of them individually and I also didn’t think I’d have the time or the patience to edit that many interviews. The audio didn’t come out great, so lesson learned. It was a fun couple of minutes, and I just wish I could’ve included everything. There was an interesting discussion about BU and the area surrounding it, but it was left on the cutting room floor.

By the time I got to Kim Smith, Landon Peacock and Cole Atkins, I was starting to feel as unprepared as I actually was. It was a bit of a last minute decision to go down to the race at all, then add in allergies and my post-honeymoon funk and I was feeling like I just had a lobotomy.

Still, I was trying to fake it until I made it (as Jon Gugala advised me just that day through Twitter), but alas it wasn’t meant to be. Camera battery gave out on me as I was wrapping up with Cole and Landon. Nice…real nice. I must’ve made one heck of an impression on those guys!

All in all, it was good to be back on the racing scene and promoting the Level. It was worth the trip just to see the look on the faces of Ritchie/Harvey/Hatton as they received their Level shirts…like kids on Christmas! Can you blame them? It’s a sharp looking shirt!

Can’t complain about a day like that, not at all. Watching elite athletes compete, hanging out/talking shop with good people, meeting new people and doing it all in great weather…sign me up!