Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Treadmills

Too cold out there to run the normal 6 or 8 mile loop around the delta levees. Actually it was more of the fact that it was going to be dark that I decided to head to the gym and jump on the treadmill for a little workout. Came up with a fun plan for a hilly 5k. Started off at 3% incline and did 1-minute intervals followed by 1-minute 1% run (basically equivalent to flat outside) - did this up to 15%. After returning to flat ground, I decided to speed up the last part of the run gradually getting down to 6-minute miles on the last 1:00. Followed that up with 200 double-unders (jumping rope with two turns for every jump) as fast as I could go. Yowzers.

On Tuesday, the family headed out to get our Christmas Tree. We go to one of those lots in the parking lot - sorry not a go to the forest and cut our own tree down story - we go to the same place every year. The boys love going. However, it's also got 'lost child' written all over it. As soon as we walk into the rows of trees, the boys just take off. So now we have to spend half of our time trying to find a tree, the other half constantly in Stormtrooper/Power Ranger mode trying to find the boys (or play with them as they see it). Once we pick out a tree, they always give the boys an apple and they love it. Got all the lights on that night but we haven't had time to put ornaments on yet. I think that's scheduled for Saturday.

That's it for now. Time to go sit on the floor and stretch. Talk later...

Read more...

Foggy Monday

My brain doesn't seem to want to support paragraphs, complete sentences and/or other grammatically-correct blogging today so I'm gonna throw out random items in no particular order or fashion. Begin.

• Congrats to my friends Lee and Glorybelle (GB) for tackling CIM this weekend. Lee was shooting for a Boston Qualifier (BQ) time but ended up hitting the wall and "settling" for 3:37:59. And of course, GB (Silly Lillie), had her own injury issues going into the race but still managed to finish up in just under 4 hours. They are both faster than this but circumstances were unfavorable for them this year. Great work anyways.

• Nice work Rick Gaston on your 35th place finish at the North Face Endurance 50-miler. This just after finishing Quad Dipsea the previous weekend in 27th. You are one fast dude. Feel privileged to be able to call you a friend. Don't think I won't try and borrow your skills in the near future.

• Jo Lynn and Victoria - I'm really getting jealous of all the places you guys are running. And now you go and run together. Come on, where's the love? Don't you dare run Diablo without me - I'll be free after 12/19. Looking for a good 25k fat-buster run with or without animals.

• Nice to see the 49ers win a game yesterday at home. It was cold as hell at the game (oops, that's California cold - 49 degrees). I was a bit tired after a messy holiday cocktail party (think Jameson and Coke Zero) on Friday night and a birthday party on Saturday night. After the birthday party, we ended up watching Oscar De La Hoya get beat up and probably end his boxing career. I'm more of a UFC/MMA fan, but it was interesting to see how slow De La Hoya has become. He still made $50 million so screw him.

• Had a blast in the gym last Friday - ran a very hilly 10k on the treadmill in about 53 minutes. No wraps, no slings, no pain - nothing. Legs are feeling great. Reading other people's race reports and adventures has kept the fire burning. I'll be more than ready to start charging towards 100 miles next year.

• Softball tonight (old Detroit Tiger Stadium replica field). Always fun to get out and play - especially after having last week's game cancelled due to fog. Very strange.

• Not sure if I'll be able to run today (softball, for one). My better half has also scheduled me for a lunchtime Costco run (replace aid stations for free sample stations). Then, our oldest boy (4), has decided that today, and no other day, should be the day to pick up the Xmas tree. (Cue Homer Simpson..."WHY YOU LITTLE S..."). Never a good idea to let the kids set any part of a schedule. These become funny memories right?

That's it for today. Don't forget to enjoy what you're doing.

Read more...

Golly Bob Howdy

Holy Thanksgiving breaks!

I got an email yesterday from my friend Jo Lynn (Single Track Junkie) wanting to know if I was still among the living since I hadn't posted anything or left my comments on any of the blogs that we follow. To summarize...still living. Diagnois...computer-lazy over the past week.

I had last week off of work and since I spend most of my day in front of a computer, I tend to shy away from the machine when I'm off. Howev

er, I was still checking in and reading all of my favorite blogs (see the blog list on the right). I didn't actually leave any comments for anyone, but I was interested to see what people were up to.

Ok, now how about this running thing? First of all, I didn't end up doing the Thanksgiving 10k like I had planned. Apparently, nobody else was motivated enough to get out there. Ok fine. I headed out at 7:00 in the morning and did my own Delta levee 10-miler. What a great frickin' day it was. Clear skies and a little cool but perfect weather for running. Felt grea

t and got me ready for a fantastic day of food, family and fun (fun = drinking a sh!tload of beer). Since I do

n't have any actual races to detail, here's my Thanksgiving "race" report...

As previously mentioned, I headed out of the house at 7:00 AM and had a great 10-mile run along the Delta levees here in the Central Valley (about 1.5 hours). After getting home, it was time to prepare for the day. My wife and I host the family every Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday). This year that meant 38 people (31 adults and 7 

children). My job for the day was to cook the turkeys (2 of them) and make the stuffing (cooked separately). My method of choice for the birds is on the barbecue.  This year, since someone else was bringing ham, we

 went with a 20-pounder and a 14-pounder. (Last year it was (2) 22.5-lb birds) I put the 20-lb bird on the charcoal 

grill and smoked the hell out of it with hickory chips and put the smaller bird on the gas grill with very little smoking. While those were cooking, we watched really bad football and continously drank several varieties of beer. As more family showed up (and more people started drinking), we were approaching full volume. Good Times.

Now time for the stuffing. (This is usually the highlight of Thanksgiving). I stole the recipe from an old Williams Sonoma Thanksgiving book and I usually triple the recipe so I can feed everyone. I'll take a big turkey roasting pa

n (since it's not being used for the bird) and fill up the entire thing with bread crumbs/crouton/thingies and then pour all of the rest of the recipe (onions, celery, seasonings, etc.) on top and mix it all up - a giant portion of stuffing that gets thrown into the oven for about an hour and a half. Yum! (Btw, when did this turn into Food Network?)

Before sitting down for dinner, the youngest of the family usually do a reading of a prayer or something that inspires everyone else and reminds us of why we're doing what we're doing. Very cool stuff. (I just wish I could remember what it was this year - Warning: bad parent alert.)

The rest is all food comas and more beer. Older adults take off and the younger ones stay behind to be jackasses. Oh yeah, the kids did get put to bed at some point by a random grandma or aunt or nina. Like I said, I'm responsible for cooking and that's it. (Goodbye 'Father of the Year' award). I'm kidding, Child Services.

So that's done and I've put on the standard 4 - 5 lbs. I've been running and hitting the gym about once every 3 days. Not much else is going on as far as events. Sign-ups for some 2009 races that I want to do are approaching (Miwok 100k, Way To Cool 50k) so I'm in the process of registering for those.

I'll be throwing around my comments to my fellow bloggers and trying to update this blog more often. (Bad grammar and sarcasm are back!)

Thanks for stopping by. More to come...

Read more...

Friday and Feeling Good

Yes, it's Friday! I'm looking out the window from the home office (the room with the desk/bed combo - real fancy) and I see blue skies and no wind. I just watched the better half and the two crazies walk across the street to the park. What an amazing day. Come on...what global warming?

Look...it's a tree.

What could be better than today? How about yesterday? Finally got to a point where my legs felt strong enough to get out and run. Did the old faithful 6-mile out and back along the delta in the early evening. (I really wish I had my camera or cell phone with me). Heading out, I watched the sun drop and slip behind Mt Diablo (you can see it clearly from our house in the fall when the crap is out of the air). Perfect weather. I left my watch and ipod at home and went into Forrest Gump mode. On the return trip, I decided to up the speed a bit (I can't help it) and it felt great. Cruised the last half mile for my first run over 1 mile in 2.5 weeks. I'm back! Grabbed the dog and headed over to the park to let him chase the ball around for awhile. Damn I missed running. Today, I was thinking of running to the gym but I don't think I want to go inside more than I already have to. I'll probably take the dog out running and let him jump in the delta today.

Have a great weekend everyone!

BTW, I really need to shave today. I'm starting to get that Mutual of Omaha/Grizzly Adams thing going on. Working from home is bad for your hygiene.

Grizzly Adams did have a beard!

Some fellow bloggers are running the Javelina Jundred this weekend. Here's the link to the live tracker for the race. I put it here so I don't have to go find it later.

Read more...

Reset

I needed a new post because I was tired of the last one already. I'm over that issue and it seems a bit too angry for here. Besides, tonight starts the new softball season in Manteca. We usually stay close to home to play, but when it gets late in the year, we move our team down to a new league, about 20 miles away. Check out these fields. Each one is a replica of a real baseball stadium. Very cool.

It's been 2 weeks now since San Francisco 1-Day and I'm ready to end my running vacation/recovery period. I can't stand it anymore and I feel like I've gained 5 pounds of Biggest Loser fat. My calf/back of the knee area still has some soreness to it but I'm able to stretch and roll it out. There's not a lot of explosion in that area so I think the best approach for me will be to start building up some support muscle in my legs (thighs, hammies) while going relatively easy on the running. In other words, it's Crossfit time again.

That's it for now. Good health to all...

Read more...

My Team = Dog Sh...

Brief detour from normal stuff to rant about my softball team. Last night, we had our playoffs scheduled for softball. We played at 6:00 and if we won, we would play again at 8. Well sure enough, game time comes and we're missing 4 players from our team (yes that's right - 4!). So we're sitting there ready to get up to bat (we're visitors) and we only have 7 guys. The rule is you can play the game until the end of the 2nd inning, and then you have to have at least 8 guys to continue.

We get up and end up batting around twice and go up 9 - 0, with our 7 guys. Of course, when we go out in the field, we're pretty much F'd because you have some big old holes in the field with only 7. Still, we "only" gave up 11 runs and the score is 11-9 after 1. No sign of anyone else. We get up again and this time only score 2 to tie. They get up one more time and finish us off 14-11 and the game ends due to not enough players. It was the funnest 2-inning game I've ever played. Super pissed at the no-shows.

If you're gonna be on the team, how about showing up once in awhile? Especially the playoffs! Damn!

Of course, we still had to have our post-game beers. Although, who in the hell brought the MGD 64's? That stuff is horse pee. At least give us the Belgian stuff (i.e. Bud).

Ok. I'm good. Next season starts Monday (minus a few people)...

Read more...

Wash Me

As you can see, I decided to clean up the blog a bit. I figured it was about time to modify the look and feel and add a bit more organization. I wanted to use a different template than the standard ones provided by blogger. Since I didn't have enough time to create my own template from scratch, I found something I liked and could quickly modify at OurBloggerTemplates.com. I also found the header image there which I ended up having a little fun with. I extracted my picture from the end of the Skyline to the Sea 50k and added it to the background. Makes me look really mighty! Ha Ha! It is very Tongue-in-cheek.


As for actual running/training...I haven't done any! And I'm Halloween fat! Ok, yesterday I did a slow jog around the neighborhood to test out the leg. It's weird, I think my calf and knee have merged into a new kind of muscle-ligament injury-pain. I can't really tell where the source of soreness is coming from. I'll keep rolling it out on the foam roller and see what happens. I am definitely ready to fire up the training again - or at least get moving and start maintenance mode until next year. The only thing I have planned right now is for a 10k on Thanksgiving morning. Since I'll be pushing either a 4-year or a 2-year old in a jogger and not going for time, I'm not concerned about "training" for it. My only concern will be on keeping said 4- or 2-year old in a jogger for an hour. Tell you the truth, I'm not even sure the 4-year fits in the jogger anymore. Oh well. We do have our softball playoffs tomorrow (make up from last week's rain), so I'll find out if my leg wants to play games with me.

Take care everyone. Please let me know what you think of the new look and good luck to everyone racing this weekend.

Oh yeah two more things... Congratulations and good luck to Obama. Time to clean up 8 years of poo.

And speaking of poo, I'm a bit embarrassed and ashamed to say that my home state of California passed Prop 8, which denies same-sex couples the right to marry. I have no idea how to talk to my kids about these things, but I do know that everyone deserves equal rights. By the way, I hate politics.

Read more...