The whole story is I stayed up until 3:30 a.m. last night watching the American version of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, great movie by the way, and then woke up at 7:15 to drive into Denver for the race. It’s the first one I’ve run in several years and it felt great!

I finished somewhere in the vicinity of 26:30, that’s just under 9-minute miles, I’m happy with that. It’s the start of the journey towards running the Estes Park half marathon on June 17th. Tomorrow there’s a 10 mile run waiting for me so I better get more than 3 hours of sleep tonight.

The race was around downtown Denver and into the Rockies stadium and around the field. We had beers and dogs after the race at 9am. slightly early, but very satisfying. Thanks to Holly Oleck for the photo!

I find myself becoming much more interested in politics as I get older. It is fascinating to see how this structure, our government, allows for the play of so many different human interactions, for example watching as the Civil Unions bill died on the House floor last Tuesday due to much Republican fillibustering.

Last week I covered some of the journey of the Civil Unions Bill. There was a lot of politicking going on late Tuesday night on the floor of the House of Representatives in Colorado. I think there was something like three hours of discussion about a bill that would make trans fats illegal to serve at Colo. schools. While I think that’s a valid bill to discuss, the lengths to which some of the Representatives went to prolong it’s discussion was unsettling.. it was likened to forcing children to wear yellow starts at one point. Supporters of the civil unions bill were getting very agitated.

The bill to allow same-sex couples to form civil unions died on the calendar late Tuesday May 8, 2012, in what Lynn Bartels, our politics reporter at the Denver Post, dubbed a ‘dramatic game of political chicken in which no one would blink.’

During that game of political chicken, 30 other bills were also killed so Colorado’s Gov. Hickenlooper called for a special session, and the show goes on. I’ll be covering day 2 of the special session this upcoming Tuesday.

Thanks to Lynn Bartels at the Denver Post and Megan Verlee at Colorado Public Radio, my understanding of Colorado politics has greatly increased. Both are well worth reading and listening too. And Lynn is great at tweeting as things happen and making it real, her handle is @lynn_bartels

Here’s how I covered the evening:

This is my first post! I’m still working on the website but so far I’m happy with it.