Some adventures in road and trail running.
For Running stuff click here. For Eclipse stuff click here.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Halloween 2008: Candy!


We are back from the annual candy grab.

The weather cooperated with it being warm and dry with no wind.

Cole dressed up as a "50s" guy and Leah was Princess Leia...easy, simple and mobile.

Tomorrow we are off for our annual migration south to Florida...reading, running and sleeping on the beach...wahoo!

Trisha and I are even planning to squeeze in a 5 km race: Richards Run For Life 5km :-)

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Doing the CIM


The bad news...with a change in plans I am not going to run the Autumn Leaves 50km.

The good news...I just finished signing up for the California International Marathon (CIM) in Sacramento on December 7th.

This will be another attempt for me to break 3 hours for the marathon. Rolling hills with a net downhill sounds good to me. The race seems to have very well established management and pacing teams. I will hitch my wagon to the 3 hr group. As well, looking at the results there are lots of fast times.

I have come close twice: 3:02:33 at Boston in 2006 and then 3:03:05 at Eugene in 2007 (race report here).

This will be my first try this year. I knew going into Boston 2008 that I just had not done the required training. Race day bore that out (report here).

My other goal for this race is to finish before the boys from Eastern Oregon are showered, shaved and on a 2nd round of lunch. In other words, they are blazin' FAST and I would like to be within 20-30 minutes of their finishing times :-)

Please chime in with any and all suggestions for switching from training for a 50km to training for a marathon and how to best focus my 4 weeks of dedicated marathon training.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Five Guys Burgers in Portland


I was driving to work today (which I rarely do since usually bike commute) but I am glad I did.
Taking a completely different route from normal I spied a Five Guys Burger location! In Beaverton, Oregon! Close to where I work! w00t!!

We first hit this place on our Florida trip last year as we detailed here.

Youch...now that it is local I am going to have to do more running to match the calories :-)

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Heavenly Weekend of Running


Great weekend of running: long run out on the trails on Saturday followed by helping a friend race to a PR on Sunday.

Saturday I headed out with Scott and Rick on the trails of Forest Park.
The weather was great: cool with the sun peeking out every once and while.
The park is taking on its fall colors and yet the trails still have their summer hardness before turning into the sloppy mud of the late fall and spring.
We started at the Zoo a little after 8 am and ran out on the Wildwood trail to mile 10.
Note that they are doing some pretty major construction on the trail at the Redwood forest section of the Arboretum. On Saturday you could get around the work but you had to be creative
After the Wildwood section we headed back and then down the Alder trail to Lief. Once we were spit out on Lief it was time to pick up the pace and push it on the downhill and road. Played around the 7 min per mile mark. Then it was time to head up the Aspen trail back to Wildwood.
I got a nice second wind at this stage and was able to do some nice work back in for the 6.5 of Wildwood back to the Zoo.

This is a great 20 mile loop that I would recommend: lots of change-up in pace and terrain. You get all the climbing on Wildwood (Pittock Mansion *2) and then the climb up from Balch Creek (Stone Building) at mile 5.25 out to around mile 7. The speed work section of Lief is tough but fun and you can look forward to the "rest" pushing up Aspen.

Sunday morning the crew headed down for the Run Like Hell 5 km race. I was running with James as he tried for a personal record (PR) in the distance. For the last month and a bit James has been working hard with a training plan I drew up for hill towards the 5 km race today. I have been using Google Calendar for drafting up the training plans for a couple friends and it is working out quite nicely. Michele was also out to race the course.

We saw Mike Rosling before the start of the race as he finished the 10km event in a personal best time. His cool racing flats were still smoking!! Um...Mike and Sean, I am not sure ultra runners are supposed to be using such light shoes and running such sweet fast times at road races??!!
I think I might have to get me a pair of those Nike LunarRacers!

We also saw Kelly from Run Oregon and I picked up the Garmin 405 from her that I am going to test drive for the next week and write up my experiences.

Now to the race. It was a little nerve wracking at the start as things were pretty crowed: 700 plus people crowding into the start that is also the finish for the 10 km and half marathon participants streaming in. But amazingly it all worked out. Just before we started the 5km, the race organizers subtlety shifted over the finishing chute and we had the room we needed for the start.

The air horn went off and we were running. Nice 4-5 blocks of down hill running to spread out the field and get the legs fired up. You do have to make sure not to go out too fast. We hit the end of the downhill and turned out onto Naito. James found his stride and hit the first mile in 6:46. I had predicted James would run 6:53s so I thought this might be a little fast but the footfall and breathing sounded good so lets see what happens. Through the turnaround and to mile two with no major changes: striding out on the flat (most of it) and using the little ups and downs as mental pushes to keep the pace up.
Mile two in 6:41. Now I knew James had his PR. Out along the Portland waterfront park which was flat and fast. Then push to the turn for the return up the hill to the start/finish. James dug deep, pushed hard and crossed the line in 20:54 (6:44 avg). I was one second back at 20:55 as we took first and second in our 35-39 age group, 30 out of 750. NICE!
Full race results for the Run Like Hell 5km are here.
Now I get to revisit James' training plan and tweak it up a notch using this new race baseline :-)

Run Like Hell is a great race with smoking fast 5km and 10 km courses. I think I will race the 5km next year to try for my own PR. I also recommend hitting Elephants for a post race feast/celebration.

I got to end the day with a nice 6 mile leg stretcher with the tunes on to add some more quality miles to my training towards my next race.

Stone Building photo credit to Dar's Foto Faze

Saturday, October 18, 2008

2008 Race for the Cure at Coffee Creek Correctional Center

For the past year Trisha has been volunteering and mentoring at Coffee Creek Correctional Center. This is her story of getting involved and how it lead to a new tradition of a 5km Race for the Cure event at the prison.

Prison for me all began with a dog named Chewy.

In September 2006, both my kids headed off to school and I was asking God what I should do with my newly discovered free time. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the idea of teaching a computer or business class in prison surfaced. I don’t know why God placed prison on my heart. My only previous experience with Department of Corrections had been when I took a wrong turn while going to Ibach Park. I accidentally ended up at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville thinking the lights and expansive parking lot must indicate that the kids and I had arrived at the park. NOT!

I shared to my friends a desire to get involved in some way with the prison and the female inmates. All too soon it was May and I still hadn’t made any effort to move forward. Marnie, a friend of mine kept prompting me to take action and contact the prison, but I brushed her off: I was too busy, not prepared, I’ll do it next month.

Turns out God was getting tired of my excuses too. In June, Darin was running a race on Father's Day in Tigard. While we were at the finish line waiting for him, the kids spotted a puppy, Chewy, and couldn’t resist petting and playing with him. I exchanged smiles with Chewy’s owner, a petite Korean woman, named Christina. We shared that usually we were both at church on Sunday mornings. Christina then began to tell me about her ministry with Oregon Women’s Prison Ministry (OWPM) and her calling to "love on" female inmates. I mentioned that during the past year I had been thinking about getting involved somehow at the prison.

This was more than enough of an opening for both God and Christina. Christina immediately told me I needed to come to prison with her, in fact she could arrange for me to go that very week. I was somewhat taken aback – I mean things aren’t supposed to happen this fast and of course I felt I still had to ponder and pray. Really it was just continued inaction on my part, but thankfully God is patient and persistent.

I met with Christina over the summer. When the kids were back in school again, I joined OWPM, volunteering with the female inmates every week during the Tuesday chapel services in the medium/maximum security facility at Coffee Creek.

This past spring, at the request of some of the inmates I met, I started a jogging group. We call it a jogging group since the term ‘running’ has other connotations in the prison environment :-) .

This group is not connected with OWPM. My dream for the jogging group was for us to meet and jog together out on the prison yard, but due to safety concerns about having a volunteer on yard with the general prison population, this was not an option.

So I meet with 12 inmates twice a month in a classroom setting. We’ve covered topics such as nutrition, speed work, hydration, and the Olympics. The women ask me questions about topics such as injuries, protein drinks, running shoes, that I then research for them.

The inmates record their mileage in jogging journals and I must say they are an inspiring group of ladies. They jog on the prison yard, which basically consists of a concrete ‘sidewalk’ around a patch of sand and some picnic tables – I so want to take them out on the trails, since their scenery consists of rows of chain link fences and razor wire. Ten laps around the yard equals a mile. And if an inmate is in lock down and can’t get out to jog, some of them do their jogging on the spot in their cells. The inmates have aptly named our group the Concrete Gazelles.

In August we were discussing upcoming races and the group mentioned Race for the Cure. I asked if they wanted to participate in the race and all of them were enthusiastic about it. Of course we would have to do the race on the prison exercise yard. I talked to the Coffee Creek program administration staff and they were extremely positive (big thank-you to Liz and Amanda) – we were even able to offer the inmates ice water (something that isn’t normally available). And since the yard would be only open to race participants, I would be allowed to jog with and support the women. Once again I was amazed at how fast everything came together – we only had approximately a month lead time to coordinate the event and everything went incredibly smoothly.

Next I talked to the Susan Komen Foundation (Race for the Cure organizers). They were extremely positive (a big thank-you to Caity McKean). Since the inmates have very limited funds, the Komen Foundation offered a reduced registration rate. I really didn’t want this to be a free event. The goal was for the inmates to take it seriously and have pride in giving back to the community.

We put the word out in the inmates’ newsletter and over 75 women signed up and they raised close to $400. It was a blast for me to go down to the Race for the Cure expo and pick up all those race numbers. Due to prison regulations the women weren’t permitted to have the race t-shirts or commemorative pins, but they were allowed to keep their bib numbers and the signs on which they could write who they were jogging in memory of/celebration of.

We were able to do the race the same day as the outside world, on Sunday September 21 at 1pm. Decked out in an orange safety vest and wielding a ‘Go Girls’ sign, I was honored to be out on the J/K yard to jog with and cheer on the women. I taped their numbers (no safety pins allowed) on their shirts and poured out cup after cup of ice water. The inmates did 31 laps to make the 3.1 mile race distance and it was very cool to see many of them work hard. And even more exciting, one of the inmates participating was a breast cancer survivor. It was a treat for me to jog with the inmates from the jogging group and talk to them about their running experiences. In the end we made a high five cheering line for the last of the women completing the race and some of the inmates asked even me to sign their bib numbers.
The positive attitudes and excitement demonstrated how such an event can bring people together, whether inside or outside prison walls.

Thank-you to all who were praying and supporting us and the event.
Please let me know if you have any ideas for running related topics that I can discuss with the group or good running related movies (Darin's note: running related movies link here).

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Looking to ensure you are IP clean?


Working on the Eclipse Architecture council and just plain being a long time Eclipse committer I know a good sampling of the questions that arise about the ins and outs of open source licenses and the best practices for making sure you, as a committer maintain the high standard of intellectual property cleanliness that is the standard for Eclipse.

So, I plan to sit in on the upcoming webinar from the Eclipse Foundation's Janet Campbell. Janet has always presented in a manner that is easy for non-lawyer developers to understand.
She has also always been willing to field the tough questions.

Here are the details on the webinar:
The Eclipse Foundation is hosting a webinar to discuss the different styles of open source licenses and their implications on use within an enterprise or a vendor. The webinar will also discuss the best practices used by the Eclipse Foundation to ensure the Eclipse open source projects address many of the IP issues. Attendees of this session will gain a better appreciation for how to deal with the risk and benefits of open source IP.

Ensuring Clean Intellectual Property
October 22, 2008 at 9:00 am PDT / 12:00 pm EDT / 4:00 pm GMT
Presented by Janet Campbell
To register email webinar-ip at eclipse dot org

For more information on this and other Eclipse webinars, visit http://live.eclipse.org/. Special thanks to Adobe for contributing their Adobe Acrobat Connect product to host the webinar.
Be there and be clean.

Picture from Eclipse IP Process in Cartoon...but you knew that :-)

Monday, October 13, 2008

Body Building and Biking

Lots of firsts this past weekend: Trisha and I went and watched our first body building competition and did our first 75 mile bike ride.

The bodybuilding competition was the Seven Feathers Classic at the Seven Feathers Casino in Canyonville, Oregon. Our friend Ronda was competing so we went down to give moral and verbal support. It was inspiring to see all the athletes dedication and commitment. I was also glad I had done my push-ups earlier in the day so I could at least pretend I had some muscle definition :-) . Ronda did great finishing 3rd in her height class. If you are interested in more details read her blog here.

After a short sleep, we hit the road again for the relatively short drive to Champoeg state park and the start of the Harvest Century rides. With James and Mary, we had signed up for the 75 mile route option. Trisha and I road on the tandem bike (thanks Scott!) with James and Mary riding solo.

The ride started kinda cold with even a few raindrops. Then just as the legs were loosening up and getting into the riding groove we hit a traffic jam: hundreds of bikes waiting in line to catch the Canby ferry across the Willamette River. Luckily the sun came out to warm us up as we ended up waiting almost one hour. The hill on the other side of the river really got the blood pumping and made everyone quickly look forward to the next aid station.

The route does a large loop around Chehalem mountain and pretty much goes right by Bull mountain and our house. Then on out to Forest Grove. We missed one turn on the way (none of us saw any marking) but I don't think it added or subtracted from the ride.

The next section was pretty grueling for us: lots of rolling hills and I suspect we rode a fair bit of the stage with a tire on the verge of going flat. Trisha noticed the tire was low at the aid station so we filled it back up. About 5 miles later it was flat. Checked the tire, changed the tube and set out again. 2 miles. Low again. Pump, ride, repeat. We got within one mile of the finish and were totally flat when Trisha jumped off the bike and ran in the last mile to fetch the car and end our day. She is a such awesome shape right now a little 1 mile run after 75 miles of biking hardly phases her :-)

The ride is at a nice time of the year with a reasonable price ($45), with weather that will generally cooperate. It is a scenic but challenging, rolling course. The lunch was tasty: chili, salad and baked potatoes washed down with apple cider...really quite good. Chocolate milk at the last aid station brought me back from the dead.
The route could be marked a little better, the aid stations were a bit sparse (there are only so many bagels and peanut butter you can consume to stay fueled), the refreshments were all gone at the finish when we arrived and something needs to be done about the bottleneck at the ferry.

Would we do the ride again? Yes. We are not sure how to beat the ferry problem but likely starting earlier would help. It would be interesting to hear how many people had to wait versus those who just basically pulled up and crossed.
Not sure I would do the ride in the rain. Staying warm would be quite a battle.

Now I can focus back on running and the next four weeks of hard training before I head back to Champoeg for my next race: the Autumn Leaves 50km on November 15th.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Rebuilding Together


This morning a group of 14 guys from Grace Point Community church got together and helped rehabilitate a yard in our neighborhood.

The group brought the rakes, clippers, and other tools and provided the volunteer labor for a Rebuilding Together project. Rebuilding Together is a non-profit which partners...
"with the community, repairs and rehabilitates the houses of low-income homeowners, particularly the elderly, those with disabilities and families with dependent children, so that they may continue to live in warmth, safety and independence. We have been performing these free repairs in Washington County since 1994."
For more details on other projects and how to volunteer click on the Rebuilding Together logo.

For our day, the cold and clear weather was perfect. We trudged in and tackled the blackberries, rose bushes, figs, clematis and fruit trees that had taken over the yard.

With three hours of good, hard work the team cleared out the vegetation, pruned the trees, weed whacked the shrubs and mowed the lawn. The garden path was cleared, the deck was swept and the gutters were emptied of the accumulated dirt and leaves.
We even helped a few snakes move to new locations within the yard :-)

It was a great opportunity to give back and exercise our "servant" hearts. Does anyone know a better way to bring guys together than firing up a chain saw on a Saturday morning?

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Run Like Hell 5km: this one IS flat

I have signed up to do the 5km race for the Run Like Hell day of events.

Using the course route as shown on the Terrapin events site, I plotted the Run Like Hell 5km route on the USATF site to get a race elevation profile. Therefore no surprises on race day.

My route plot is definitely an approximation as the race map does not indicated the exact turn-around, but it does show that this baby is flat.
As in pancake. 75 feet of climbing. Nice.Tiny downhill to start and the same uphill to finish.
Not like that nasty Portland 5 miler last weekend with its 1.5 miles of climbing
for 230 feet of gain. But you can also see why I was able to run the last mile so fast :-) With all my whining about the 5 miler...I guess you can tell I want to do it again as it was tough and fun!

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Portland Marathon 5 miler and marathon pacing


Portland Marathon 5 mile Splits:

Mile one: 6:09
Mile two: 6:15
Mile three: 7:08
Mile four: 6:34
Mile five: 5:53

This post could also be titled: "The day I stopped trusting Joe Dudman" :-) More on that later.


After grabbing a ride down with my buddy Scott, who was running the marathon, I got to watch the marathon start and then wait for my race to start at 7:45 am.
I had a great run today in near perfect temperatures. My finish time is not what I had dreamt of but then the course was tougher than I thought it would be with much more climbing. If you look at the splits you can see the miles that were impacted. Funny how you can never quite make up for the uphill with the downhills :-)
Back to Joe Dudman...he is an amazing and fast local runner who blogs. He put a preview up about the 5 mile course.
Joe talks about a "...1/3 of a mile of climbing".
So when the hill started, I just thought, OK, I can dig deep for 1/3 of a mile and push through a little hill. Well, not sure how Joe measures his miles, but he needs some calibration :-) The hill went on for at least 1.25 miles and had some serious impact on my average pace.
I did shake Joe's hand at the end of the race so all is forgiven :-) Seriously, check out the blog, lots of great info on the Oregon running scene.

Anyways, enough excuses. I am really happy with my place, both overall and in my age group. Now if only I would have dropped 4 seconds to get in to the 31s. Silly not to look at my watch for that last bit.... at least I beat Sean's 10km (6.22 mile) time! Great fun race.

After finishing my race and picking up my clothes, I started running back on the marathon course to meet our friend Kris and pace her to the finish.
It was about 3 miles of running until I hit the first place runner. He was flying and looked to be in control of the race. I think he was at least half a mile in the lead at this point on the nice downhill. But then I look at the results and it shows he placed second. Good lesson: Never, ever give up. There is always more race when anything can happen.

As I continued to run back, it was inspiring to see all these great runners digging deep to pound out the last miles. I saw Kami Semick leading the women. She is an amazing ultra-runner as well as having the foot speed to win with 2:45 at a road marathon!


I met up with Kris around mile 19.5. She was running just behind the 3:35 pace group but needing to focus to continue to make it to the finish with a Boston time. We synced up and headed to the finish. At mile 21, Trisha and Ronda cheered, took pictures and provided gels.

Finally the flat miles through the college grounds ended and we could stretch it out on the nice downhill by the Adidas campus. Kris did amazing on all the downhills to keep herself on track. The uphills, as always in the last part of a marathon were tough, but I tried to help by encouraging Kris to change up her stride to a shorter faster cadence and put those arms to use. Soon we were up and over the Broadway Bridge and back to some sweet downhill, around the corner and spit out back on Naito Parkway for the last ~2 miles of fun.

The 3:40 pace group edged up to us and Kris pushed and stayed even with them till I ducked out at the mile 26 corner. She finished with a great Boston time and likely she will write up more details on her blog. Thanks for letting me be part of your day Kris.

So an amazing day of running with racing, a recovery run and a pacing run to total ~18 miles all before 11:00 am.

Then Trisha picked me up just in time to hit church and catch my friend Brian's first sermon...with the weighty topic of suffering. Brian did a great job of "preachin' it" and challenging everyone with God's words. He will be able to do great things once Natasha and Brian hit the ground running in Honduras with the Micah Project.
Finished with a lazy afternoon hanging with the kids.

Now I just want to sleep and think about the next race / adventure. Not too long of a wait...Trisha and I are bike riding a 75 miler next Sunday on a tandem...life is good!

Friday, October 3, 2008

2008 Jog-a-Thon

It was the annual Jog-a-thon for the kid's school today. The kids collect pledges for the number of laps they are going to run and then the school collects the pledges to bolster their budget. The kids have fun, the school gets money: everyone wins!

Both Trisha and I were able to be there to volunteer for the 30 minute segments that Cole and Leah ran with their classes.

Cole was up first at 10:50 am.
He ran the entire 30 minutes with no walk breaks. My running heart was bursting out of my chest with pride as he dug deep and completed 27 laps of the loop on the sports field of the school. This was 3 more laps than last year so a great PR. It was cool for me that he still wants me to run all the way with him...and that at least for another year I can keep up with him :-)

Leah's run started at 1:20 pm. She did great completing 25 laps...1 more than last year...PR!. Leah was laughing and dancing in the rain for part of it, and then doing hurdles over the course cones down the back part of the track. It was great to do all of the laps with her and end walking hand and hand to the finish line.

Both kids did great with their pacing as it is sooo hard not to go out too fast for the first lap. They really have learned that it is easier to run a steady pace for the whole time.

Great event completed for another year. Now if only we could talk the school into doing this every month!

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Last Prep for the Portland Marathon

I have been talking to my friends this week who are about to tackle the Portland marathon. This got me to thinking about the race and the lessons I have learned from running this race in 2004 and 2006...where I made several mistakes that lead to less than great times. Hopefully these will help people out to have a great race on Sunday.

It is really hard in any marathon to find the sweet spot where you can put time in the bank in the early part of the course. Portland is no different.

The hardest part about Portland is not going out too fast at the beginning...there are uphills and downhills, lots of people on the course running with you and lots of spectators cheering you on as you run through downtown.

It should feel slow the first couple of miles. Take it easy on the uphills. Enjoy the downhills but do not pound them. Try to base it on your heart rate..not how it feels.

My advice would be to try to stick to nothing faster than about 10 seconds per mile faster than your goal pace until you top out on the bridge. This will be hard to do.
Some of the early downhills can easily lull you into running closer to 30 seconds per mile fast...watch it. Then there will be all those people streaming by if you do stick to your pace. Don't worry...they will easily come back to you after the hill up to and over the St John's bridge (Mile 16 - Mile 17 on the course) :-)

You need to ensure to run your own race. This is a time to be selfish...use people if they help you to make your goal but do not allow anyone to lure you to an incorrect pace.

Speaking of pace, there are pace groups that are lead by experienced runners. There are groups for just about any goal time lead by the Team Red Lizard. See here for all the details.
Again, if sticking with a page group helps you, stay with them. If not, pass them or let them go.

Stay mentally focused in the nasty out and back (miles 7-11) . It is flat, boring and the scenery is, shall we say, lacking in beauty. There usually are lots of spectators so use their energy and the boost of seeing the other runners heading back out. A high five or two may even be in order.
In the miles out to the bridge stick to your pace and try to relax and conserve energy for the work ahead. The miles are mostly flat with little crowd support so again, stay focused.

Once you tackle the hill to the bridge, there is lots of time and opportunity to finish strong.
Look at that really nice long flat and downhill after the peak at mile 17.5. The crowds also really pick up near as you run through the by the campus grounds. Gravity can really help you out IF you have gas left in the tank and the quads can respond with no bad leftovers from running the early miles too fast.
Really aim to do a negative split. I have never seen the strategy of banking time and then attempting to hold on work out for the best time nor for the best experience.

It is soooo much more fun to feel strong and be able to open it up for the last 8 or 9 miles. If you go out fast, even if you are holding close to the correct pace after the bridge hill, it will feel hard and less enjoyable.

Good luck to all the runners and have fun! The weather is looking good.
Feed off of the the energy from the crowd and all those people you pass :-)
Ensure to shout out words of encouragement to any one that passes you...after you make them work just that little bit harder when they do try to pass :-)

Smile as you feel strong racing and using all the hard work you have done in training!

More information on the Portland marathon can be found at the Run Oregon blog.
St John's Bridge picture by Cacophony

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Eclipse in the Fall

We are officially into the fall season and that means at least two things for Eclipse aficionados: DemoCamps and submission time for EclipseCon.

A large cadre of Eclipse demo camps (27 listed so far) are being organized for November and December.
With the help of the local Eclipse office and sponsorship again by Instantiations, I am organizing a demo camp in Portland Oregon for November 12, 2008.

This will be the 3rd Portland demo camp and we plan to continue with a format similar to those of the past but try a Southwest location to mix things up: Godfather's Pizza on the Tigard/Beaverton border.
Come as a presenter and demo the cool stuff that you have been working on in Eclipse or building on top of Eclipse. Or come as an attendee to be inspired by the work of others.

The EclipseCon 2009 (March 23rd - 26th, 2009, in Santa Clara, California) submissions open up on October 6, 2008. Please take some time to consider submitting a proposal in one of the many categories and types of presentations. I especially would encourage you to consider the Committer and Contributor category which I am the lead for again this year. The goal of the Committer and Contributor category is:
...to enable new and experienced Eclipse committers and contributors to work effectively with and for the Eclipse community. Presentations will include topics covering how to work in the open, how the Eclipse foundation operates, and how to foster or be a successful contributor or committer. Talks focusing on peer and community interactions, ecosystem building, the Eclipse foundation and governance model, licensing and the Eclipse IP process, Eclipse project initiation, growth and maintenance, and the Eclipse development process will all be considered.
As well please review the "Awesome Presentations" post from Scott Rosenbaum on the EclipseCon blog.

And don't worry...I am definitely planning EclipseCon Exercise 2009.

Looking forward to the demo camps and EclipseCon 2009.