Running in the Dark

October 19, 2012October 31, 2012 ~ meh ~ 1 Comment

Last year the Bourbon Chase pushed me over the edge into the dark abyss that was Blobtoberfest. This year it did the exact opposite. After 2 months of feeling off and being lazy, it kicked my butt into gear. For the past 2 weeks I’ve been running an average of 20-25 miles a week. Not fast, but more mileage than over the course of the summer. By quite a bit.

You’ve also probably picked up on the fact that I think fall is the best time of year to run. It’s just beautiful. Unfortunately, there is a downside in that it hasn’t been getting light out until about 7:30am (one thing that sucks about being so far west in the eastern time zone). Also unfortunate is that I don’t generally run alone in the dark, because I am convinced I will eventually get attacked. And most unfortunate of all is the fact that all of my morning running buddies have either moved away or left me in the dust and are just way too fast for me to run with anymore.

Today I really wanted to get a run in, but have a long drive ahead of me and can’t do it after work. So, armed with my pepper spray, I recruited another running buddy to come with.

…because he will protect me.

When I was training for serious I hated running with the dog. Now, I prefer it. We’ve found our groove and I usually only have to stop once for him to drop a doozer and me to clean it up. No problem.

On mornings like this, because it’s so dark, I attach our only small LED round light to the back of his harness. I figured it was either him or me, and since he usually runs next to me or just in front of me he could light the way. Like Rudolph.

(Someone didn’t want to run this morning and crawled back into bed.)

My view for the entire run was essentially this:

But it worked. The 6 miles flew by, the dog is (almost) as good as a person companion, and no scraped knees or broken elbows.

Though we both survived and there are very few things better than getting a good long run in first thing in the morning while the rest of the world sleeps, I’m still sticking with my policy on running alone in the dark. Unsafe.

This afternoon heading up north to Cleveland to visit Lisa in her new home. Very excited about that. Very.

happy happy weekend

Bourbon Chase 2012

October 4, 2012October 5, 2012 ~ meh ~ Leave a comment

Another successful year for team Jim Beam Me Up. Another unsuccessful year for the Spock ears I always want to put on the vans.

This year we had a runner drop out, but it turned out to be OK because JEN GOT TO RUN WITH US!

She was so excited.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Bourbon Chase, it’s a 12-person, 200-mile running relay along the Bourbon Trail across Kentucky that goes through all of the major distilleries.

Runners are broken up into 2 vans of 6, with each runner running 3 legs over the course of the trail.

The morning started out with a little rain, a 9:30am meeting, followed by a bourbon tasting at Jim Beam.

The only way to start an endurance event.

This year we were in Van 2, so had a few hours to kill before Van 1 finished off the first 6 legs. So we checked out the distillery…

…then we hit the road, where there was a lot of this.

Lunch options were limited, and we had 2 people in the van with dietary restrictions. We settled on a Mexican place in Central Kentucky.

I know. We almost changed our team name to Team Gringo Diarrhea mid-race.

From there is was off to Makers Mark for the first Van 1/Van 2 handoff.

The sun kept fighting to break through the rain, and we checked out the mash.

Ryan was the lucky first runner from our van. He took off around 5pm.

We ticked off the legs one by one…

…and ran off into the sunset.

Then it got dark.

And during leg #9, the rain came back with a vengeance.

Poor J. The rest of us spent a good 10 minutes in the van debating how important it was that we all be out on the course to cheer her into transition.

Traditional evening wear looked something like this.

424762_10151439774294972_2065014099_n — coal miner? runner?

Plus a few blinking lights.

We wound our way through the dark Commonwealth.

253010_10151439774214972_1596776644_n — harrodsburg, kentucky’s oldest town, 4am

Until, after a lot of running and minimal “sleeping” in the van, I ran the final night leg into the sunrise…and the Four Roses distillery which, along with coffee, bagels, and hot chocolate, has the most delicious bourbon of all.

Then, while van #1 ran the next six legs, we crossed some bridges…

…past Wild Turkey and into Versailles for a deeelicious country breakfast.

People also took the rest time to start rolling out our stupidly stiff legs and familiarize themselves with the beauty that is Biofreeze.

After that, it was over to Woodford Reserve for the final exchange from Van #1.

As Ryan made his way up the massive hill that comes out of Woodford, the sun came out.

And it got hot. But beautiful.

The remaining runs were through horse country.

Jen ran the final leg into Lexington. The way it works is both vans go to the finish line and the whole team waits for the final runner, then everyone runs across together, cheering, while the announcer announces the team name, and it’s very festive and a very big deal.

Well. Jen ran so fast that our team wasn’t even at the finish line yet. Apparently the announcer was like, “TEAM 507! HERE COMES YOUR RUNNERRRRrrrrr.” And she ran across the finish line. Alone.

Fortunately, there was free bourbon to comfort everyone after the team fail.

And all was well.

185356_10151437246124972_989992228_n — finish line photo op

Thanks goes out to Jen for making the flight all the way out here, J & Ryan for inviting us on the team, the peeps in Van #2 for only being mildly stinky and making 30+ hours stuck in a van a non-negative experience, and George for organizing another glorious weekend in bourbon country.

More pics here.

To Freeze or Not To Freeze

August 29, 2012August 31, 2012 ~ meh ~ Leave a comment

pic via

This morning I got an email from Big Shoulders saying the water is a delicious 78 degrees right now, but “forecasts call for heavy rain this coming weekend due to the remnants of Hurricane Isaac” which could churn up the lake and drop temps significantly. Participants have until the 5th to change their entry from the non-wetsuit to wetsuit division.

Despite the fact that I wear a heavy jacket in the office 365 days a year and regularly lose feeling in my feet from cold, I’ve never seriously considered wearing a wetsuit for an open water swim, even though you do go faster. Part of the reason is because I still kind of feel like wearing a wetsuit is wimpy or something. Another is that so far it just hasn’t been necessary for any of the swims I’ve done.

But also, in my mind at least, dealing with the conditions is part of the sport. Pool swimming is for shaving down and wearing high-performance gear and nailing your technique and having everything. go. PERFECTLY. so you can out-touch your opponent by .0001 seconds. Open water is where you fight for clean water and sight and navigate through seaweed and (hopefully no) animals and…deal with the elements. That’s what makes it different. And fun.

So, whether it rains or not this weekend, no wetsuit for me. (We’ll ignore the fact I don’t own one, so there’s a problem in and of itself.) Lucky (?) for me, I’ve spent the past few weeks (unintentionally) putting on an extra layer of blubber. In the past, I have done shorter swims (30 minutes) in the low 60s and even low-50s during the few months that I swam at the Dolphin Club up in SF (like, 5 years ago, but still). So I’m hoping 75 minutes or so in temperatures closer to 70 will be fine.

Regardless, I will most likely need a little flame sax before I hop in the water.

Old Spice Muscle Music from Terry Crews on Vimeo.

MUSCLE. MUSCLE. MUSCLE. FLEX.

Thanks to Joe for the video.

Facecake and Bourbon

August 24, 2012August 24, 2012 ~ meh ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been in a funk for a while. Today, I decided to attempt to break out of it. How?

Step one: bake a cake of someone’s face.

…and then proceed to eat the whole thing by yourself over the course of the workday.

That is my coworker and his facecake. Today is his last day of work, which is the actual reason that I baked the cake, even though his departure and the consequent onslaught of work crap that is rapidly heading my direction is probably contributing directly to my level of funk.

Coworker’s departure also means a new cube addition.

Yup. Fish abandonment. At least my tree has a friend now.

Onward.

Step 2: Make up a new training schedule.

Despite being signed up for 2 races in the next month, I’ve been doing completely unstructured, haphazard training since Hawaii. And while I’m not looking to go back to 17 hours of training a week, a little structure sometimes helps keep you going.

That’s right. You know who to turn to when you need some structure.

I have been talking to J and my sister in law about potentially running a half marathon sometime this fall. So this morning, 3 pieces of facecake deep, I decided to brush off the good ol’ Hal Higdon training guide and integrate it into my current schedule of yoga and swimming.

I’m seriously considering shooting for a full marathon sometime in the spring (my sister and bro in law just signed up for the Catalina Island Conservancy Marathon, which would be hilly and brutal and AWESOME), but with all the running injuries I dealt with this season I’m going to stick with a halves for now and see where they take me.

We also just received our leg assignments for the Bourbon Chase. I’m leg #12, which means I get to carry the team across the finish line in dramatic fashion. Score.

In handing out the leg assignments the race directors also let us know that they had to change the route for two legs of the course due to the Burgoo Festival in Lawrenceburg and the Ham Days Festival in Lebanon, where they auction off grand champion hams.

Bring on the burgoo.

Just keep swimming… + a wedding

August 17, 2012 ~ meh ~ Leave a comment

So it turns out August might not be the best month to really ramp up your swimming regimen in Lexington. With the UK pool closed and half of the outdoor pools shut down because school has started, and the half that are open usually jam packed with 3 club teams sharing 4 lanes…it’s ugly. So the only real option is getting up at 5 to go to the Y…which, seriously, I’m just not going to do during the one month of the year that I don’t coach.

But guess what’s just around the river bend.

Training started out ok…I was good about swimming at least 3500-4000 every day when we were out in SB in July, and when I got home from that trip I shocked myself by coming up with long sets and doing the whole thing after work BY MYSELF, including a few 3K swims straight for time. Like, what?

But last week work got super busy with travel, and this past weekend I was out in LA for my cousins wedding, which calls for a…SIDE POST:

the beautiful bride and father

part of the paternal side of the fam looking so sad because we missed molly so much

a classy granny…i can only hope that this is genetic and i look that good at 86

…and my dad in a yarmulke

So the wedding was wonderful and the bride was stunning and…it was in LA! So all of my time was spent either with family or in the ocean, or with family in the ocean. No complaining there. But none of it training. Even though I sometimes count body surfing as a swim workout. Almost. Because it’s my favorite thing to do ever.

When I got back, crazy work schedule + Paul’s 24 hour shifts continued, along with a peeling forehead from forgetting to put on sunscreen (really great for client meetings.) But I did finally manage to hop in on Thursday and squeeze a 2000 “for time” (really I just tried to hold a steady pace and feel comfortable) into my workout. But that’s all I’ve done in almost 3 weeks.

Got another longer swim on the docket for tomorrow morning (anyone who wants to join…call me) and I’ll continue to do my best to cram for the next 3 weeks, but I’m pretty sure things are going to be touch and go until UK opens up again in September.

Moral of the story: might be best to start preparing for a painful swim in Chicago.

chicago_skyline_and_lake_michigan — pic via

P.S. Good luck to Joe who is running the Old Farts Marathon this weekend up in Michigan, a marathon that sounds brutal, is full of hills that appear to be named after my father and his brothers (Ed, Chuck…), and that you apparently don’t have to be an old fart to race in. GO GET EM

Speckle

August 15, 2012 ~ meh ~ 1 Comment

So, turns out no training life is boring life for the blog. What is NOT at all boring is what has been happening in the chicken coop.

Yes. That’s right. On a rainy Sunday where I stayed in the kitchen for 6 hours cooking two meals and baking zuchinni bread so I could pretend like I was being productive while I watched 10 straight hours of Breaking Bad (don’t think this story can get more exciting? Just wait. ) I went out into the coop to get the eggs, and found that one of the chickens had finally…laid an egg in the doghouse!

Victory. Paul: 1, Chickens: 0.

The egg I pulled from the house was way more speckled than usual.

I thought that was weird and was wondering what might have caused the change. After some extensive research (Google) I came across this National Geographic article that suggests that the speckles on the shells of bird eggs may be caused by certain compounds known as protoporphyrins, which often shows up in eggs from birds that are calcium deficient to assist in strengthening the shells.

The birds discussed in the NG article were great tits (serious), so I tried to see if it’s the same for chickens. There actually isn’t a whole lot written about that, but the little I did find points to the same answer.

Time to start spiking the chicken feed with One-A-Day Women’s multivitamins.

Feed the Birds

August 7, 2012August 7, 2012 ~ meh ~ 2 Comments

While in Mary Poppins feeding the birds will get you smiling saints and apostles, in our yard it gets you…

a mini cornfield in the middle of the lawn! This is the bird feed we use:

It’s probably hard to tell from that height, but obviously there is some corn in there. Most of the stuff that ends up on the ground gets eaten by birds and chipmunks, but apparently they don’t get all of it. So after a few ~~days~~ weeks of not mowing…ta da!

Paul, still feeling the bitter sting of our corn not surviving last year, now refuses to mow it down.

Speaking of feeding birds, we have a new addition to the family.

That would be a meal worm farm in our guest room. Why? Good question. I had the same one when Paul called me when I was in DC and excitedly told me he had set up a meal worm farm.

Apparently chickens love meal worms. On BackyardChickens.com, there is an article that starts with the sentence, “Everyone who has a small flock of chickens should raise mealworms.” It also says that you should “Use only the larvae (worms) to feed your birds. The pupae and beetles should be left alone for reproductive purposes and never removed from the colony.”

Originally the farm was located in the backyard, so I was like fine, worms, whatever. But then “the weather got too hot” so they were relocated to the guest room. I am less OK with any sort of pupae or beetle breeding inside the house, and am pretty sure that at some point the dog (or I) will knock it over. So…yeah.

These eggs had better be AMAZING.

Sucking Air

August 2, 2012August 3, 2012 ~ meh ~ 1 Comment

You may have noticed there hasn’t been much on here lately about exercise. That would be because, aside from watching the Olympics, I haven’t been doing much of it. And while it’s nice to know that I still have no problem whatsoever embracing time off to participate in other activities, I have also learned that my perception of my personal fitness level is not always in line with…well, reality.

Over the past 2 months I’ve been running about 2 times a week, usually no more than 4 miles (usually closer to 3), and always in the morning at a nice easy pace. That being said, I ran the Bluegrass 10K on the 4th just fine, so I took that as a sign that I was maintaining my fitness level just fine…even though my motivation has been super low and I wasn’t really training.

Then this week my aunt Barbara who works at StrideRite sent me and Paul some REALLY FRICKIN SUPER AWESOME shoes.

These combined with the Mizuno Elixirs that I bought a few weeks ago, because I had to leave my stinky mcstinkster Brooks in Hawaii after the 70.3, got me kind of amped about getting back into running (because few things get me more excited about working out than getting new gear). Plus, I am signed up for the Bourbon Chase again, so theoretically at some point I do need to start training.

So yesterday I got excited (for the first time in a long time) about doing an easy 5 miler after work then making a nice healthy dinner for Paul (who has had a pretty busy first week).

The super intense heat has mellowed out a little bit, but it’s still pretty warm…as in 91 degrees with 60% humidity at 6pm when I went for a run.

Again, relative to what we’ve been experiencing, it felt pretty good when you walked out the front door. So I figured it’d be hot, but doable. So I found a solid This American Life podcast on my phone, laced up my Kinarvas, and headed out the door.

Turns out I was wrong.

The first mile/mile and a half felt great. The shoes are amazing. Then, around the 10 minute mark, I started to hurt. Like the kind of hurt where your chest burns and you feel like you’re going to ralph. After 10 minutes. And no matter how much I tried to slow down my jog, I couldn’t shake it. First I blamed the heat (which was probably part of it), then the pollen (allergies have been bad lately)…I mean, really, what else could it be?

And then it hit me: I’m just out of shape.

I haven’t struggled like that in a long time. My heart rate was through the roof. Even switching my podcast over to One Direction on my RUN FASTER playlist couldn’t get me moving. I walked twice. I was super hot and super thirsty. I felt like I may have a GI disaster at one point (but didn’t, crisis averted). It was ugly.

My red-faced self got home from the debacle (not like the flushed, healthy-looking I-just-finished-working-out red, but the people-stop-what-they’re-doing-to-ask-you-“oh-my-god-are-you-ok?” kind of red), chugged a gatorade, and lay on the couch moaning while Paul chopped the veggies in the kitchen and kept asking me, “did you still want to make dinner or should I just do it?” After about 15 minutes before I pulled my melodramatic self off the couch and re-engaged with the world.

The moral of the story: time to get back on the wagon. Shooting for ~15-20 miles over the next week. Quasi-regular training starts this weekend.

One final, sad (for me), relatively unrelated note: on Monday Allison hopped on a plane to Scotland to start vet school.

While, as with Kristin, I am happy for her to be moving on to something bigger and more exciting than sitting in Lexington coaching me for free (if that exists), my long rides and long runs won’t be the same without her going as slow as she possibly can giving me instruction while I struggle to keep up with her. She will be sorely missed.

Enjoy your weekend.

Farm Update

July 13, 2012 ~ meh ~ Leave a comment

IMG_20120711_083332 — “‘MERICA, F**K YEAH!” say the chickens

Paul put a little addition on the chicken coop.

Aaaah, rain. It is raining this morning. We got a few afternoon storms mid-week and the heat finally started to mellow out, thank goodness. Without our usual rain everything was starting to get all brown and parched…and look a lot like California. I was worried the garden wasn’t going to make it. Our flowers out front are dried husks of what they used to be.

So sad and ugly. That used to be a beautiful big blue delphinia bush. Some of the herbs took a serious beating from the heat too, especially the cilantro.

Our back lawn is brown, which is gross. And the chickens eggs the past few days have been smaller than usual, which is weird, so I’m blaming that on the weather too.

Speaking of the chickens, the whole time we’ve had them they have laid their eggs in their respective places: Romy is usually in the corner in a nest, and Michelle has been laying them from her perch in the coop. Yesterday morning I went out and found this:

Aw, nest love.

But not all is lost in our garden. The basils and oregano are hanging in there.

…and of course, the tomatoes. We had our first real harvest the other day.

They’re still small and they have a seriously weird shape with a pointy end, but they are tasty. And the Kentucky Colonel mint is kickin ass and taking names. That stuff grows like a weed. And with the rain scheduled to hang around this weekend, I’m hoping by next week things will start to perk up again.

This weekend we continue 2012: Year of the Airplane. Tonight Paul and I are hopping on a flight…TOGETHER…out to CA. He is done with boards (but his scores don’t come back till next week…so don’t bring it up) and we are spending a week at my parents place where my plans consist of laying in the sun and eating avocados.

But first, off to U of L to take a final for an online class I’ve been taking. Don’t be too jealous.

Hot Hot Heat

July 6, 2012July 6, 2012 ~ meh ~ Leave a comment

Yes, that’s right. Hotness to the max.

Weather forecast for today…and yesterday, and the day before that, and tomorrow: too hot to move with lots of humidity.

The good news about the heat is that it’s PERFECT weather to go enjoy a swim outside now that the public pools are open. And considering I’m registered for the Big Shoulders 5K open water swim in Chicago in September and have swam exactly twice in the past 5 weeks, this pool motivation is a good thing. Got a long swim workout with Allison on the calendar tomorrow morning to get the ball rolling.

Time to get back in the water. Aw hecks yeah.

The secret to these pools is to get there early, before the hairballs and bandaids take over.

Speaking of sporting events, BIG FAT SHOUT OUT to everyone who is racing the 70.3 in Munice, IN tomorrow. Please don’t melt. Remember, ice is your friend.

I’ll leave you with A Midsummer Evening’s Walk With Spike: In Pictures.