Running the Everglades

On Mother's Day, my father had an incident with a crocodile.  I blame my niece.

Then last Monday, I saw something.

A half marathon in the Everglades?  My chance to avenge my dad, right?

No.  Well, not really.  This is the joke I am going to make but really it is a chance to spend time with my father in Florida around Thanksgiving.  It has been years since I have had a Thanksgiving with my father  and I can look forward to this.

(The course, in Shark Valley.  Out to the observatory and back.)

Now, I have never run a half before, and apart from training for a couple of them, I have never really had the inclination to actually run one.  I am happy with the 5k as a thing. 

(Troy Turkey Trot, 2015.  The Boy looks delighted.)

A 5k is fun. It is a lark, for me at least.

This will take training.  Or more training than I am used to.

I go for a run a couple of times a week.  Some weeks it is two times.  Some weeks it is five.  Some runs are two miles.  Some runs are five.  Occasionally, I will push it to seven.  Now, I have to double it. Well, almost double it.  Through a swamp. 

I went back to Union a couple of weeks ago to get TEA and Union Lacrosse t-shirt and picked up a Union Track and Field tee.  (No one was amused when I asked if they just had a "and field" shirt.)  I was not the best athlete in college, and shot putters are rarely great runners, but I lettered and I am proud of what I did.  That was also twenty years ago, yet I am still built like a shot putter and I am stronger than I was in college.  What I am saying is that I can run as much as I want and I am still going to be a big guy.  Not fat, per se, though I am bigger through the torso than I should be, but stocky.  Keg shaped.  (Some of the younger people reading this, those who still have metabolisms that allow you to live on a diet of pizza, beer, and the fried food group and maintain abs, may not understand that it does not last forever.)

So, I do not look like the guy who can successfully run (and yes, I mean run) 13.1 miles.

But...

I am going to do it.

Sunday Morning

Running
So, I wanted to do a long run this morning, using an interval plan, but I did not expect this.

I am now above 50% of my monthly goal. This makes me very happy.

I think one of the reasons that I was happy to run through the pain, and there was pain...hip and knees...(Friday evening, Fish made a remark about my limp and that she was willing to walk faster just to make me admit that I hurt.) was the soundtrack to this trainer.

It was Underworld and old Underworld at that.



For almost 90 minutes it was all like this and it was great. (If you do not like it, well, I understand and I feel pity for you because you are either too young OR you just weren't raised right.)

This is setting up to be a great day!

(And there will be more about my weekend tomorrow.)

Edit at 9:43: D'oh, and one of the reasons I wanted to write this up is that after the first mile, I felt a pebble on the ball of my right foot so I stopped to remove it from the shoe, wondering how it did manage to make in in there, and when I popped my shoe off, it was still there. I was then left wondering how the pebble not only managed to make it into my shoe but also into my sock. So, there I was, standing on the side of the road, one shoe off, and taking off my sock while early to mid 90s house music was *duggaduggadiggadiggaduggadugga*-ing in my ears, and out popped half a toenail. Nice, no? Then I ran ten more miles.

Thankful for Thursday

Geekery and Wanting

Isn't it cute? I am serious. What would I use it for though?

You can find it at ThinkGeek.

Thanks to All Over Albany
All Over Albany included a link to my post about my great great grandfather's book about the Geology of the Capital District in their What's Up in the Neighborhood post. Thank you, All Over Albany.

Thankful for ScarJo
It is not odd for someone to say that they crush on ScarJo. Why would it be? However, if you do not crush on her, maybe this will change your mind?



Yes, that is ScarJo covering "Summertime"...I do not think that I have anything else that I have to listen to today.

Via Pretty Much Amazing

Running
I went out to do 5k last night.



I love running this route and I can run it forever...the only problem is the weird elevation changes...so, to save my knees, I walk them...it allows me to keep going and it allows me to get a good sweat on, even if it screws up my split. I am not going to age gracefully, damn it.

I do have to average 2.2 miles per day for the next 19 days in order to reach my goal for April. My goal for May is to double my goal for April. Yes, I am trying to cause permanent injury. I know that I am never going to break 5 minutes again (I was able to do that at 18...I am more than twice that age now.) but I want to really push myself, even as friends (yes, Ashley, I know you are concerned) shake their heads at me.

Being in on the joke...

The other day, the loverly Paige informed me that I could be the Frank Black in her Pixies coverband. I did take it as a compliment, even though I am not that bloated...yet. I may be just as unbalanced, though.

It did make me sing this song in the shower this morning.


Though I think that Paige was thinking that we would do this as our first cover...


It's cute, no?

Pinterest and Someecards


Hee!

(Schadenfreude is awful yet awesome, no?)

Oh, Michigan

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A Poem about Baseball
Ode to Opening Day
by Dave Landsberger
Promise smells like peanuts, ice in the urine trough, the citrus of halter tops
and sunburned comrades clenching salted cylindrical meats.
Today, Opening Day: An excuse to take the day off and not flock to pornography.

The beginning of a new business quarter for hobos!
The parking lot vendor affixes his counterfeit caps in single file rows,
the scalper polishes his subdued innuendos in the mirror that magicians his
medicines.

A security guard shaves against the grain, thinking nothing of the inmates who would
charge his field,
and a blimp beautifies itself by fattening.
There are prayers in the locker room today, in the boom-boom room yesterday,

and even if the seagulls interrupt our prayers to congregate and discuss small morsels
on the field,
tomorrow’s prayers can be located in the box scores.
Here’s to the single piece of trash blowing across the diamond, transfixing the park’s
eye like a hornet,

tobacco and manila mangoes tingeing the groundskeepers of all thirty cities.
Here’s to scheduling weddings around bobblehead nights, golden sombreros.
Soon, the Red Line passengers will learn to hate the Red Line post-baseball game

like one is conditioned to hate traffic, tax season, Soviet chessmen.
Tell me: What is the market share for Lemon Chills during the offseason?
The first home run of the year is measured by the silence that precedes it:

The crack of the bat is much louder than the ash trees of the Earth care to remember.
To everyone who has a grandfather without a World Series to shuck their memories
with,
think of each broken bat as a wishbone.

To everyone whose grandfathers have passed on, the videogames of heaven are played
in your eyes: Keep a scorecard for pretty girls,
the eternal battle of Left Field vs. Right Field regarding suckitude.

We will watch, we will adore, we will blaze our children in letters.
We will center our gaze on the high ratio of goatee wearing men, tanned by offices of
the sun.
We hold these truths to be self evident: beer me.

Via Slate's Hang Up and Listen

Finally
Today is a day that honors the greatest sandwich of all sandwiches.

It is National Grilled Cheese Day!

Wicked Wednesday!

Seasonal Food and Sunshine
I am so looking forward to spring produce. I want radishes. I want spring lettuce. I want them both dressed with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and cracked black pepper. I want to eat this outside with an overhopped beer (I am looking at you Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA.) and with great company.

I know that I talk about things like this all the time, but this is a craving akin to "one more cigarette".

Run with the hunted*
So, I went for a run yesterday, knowing that my knees were bothering me, and I only made it a quarter of a mile before I had to stop. So, I decided that I was going to take some ibu, wait a hour, and go out again. The second time around, I was able to complete a mile at a thoroughly uninspiring eleven minute pace and had to call it quits because while my knees were not bothering me as much, my gait had changed enough that my stride was off and I was hurting myself. Yes, I am an idiot. Thank you, Karen, for validating my idiocy. I am now 14% of my way towards my monthly goal.

One of the issues with the lack of a run yesterday was I was planning on using it to help set the straps on my CamelBak so that I could go trail running on Sunday. Why do I want to go trail running? Yeah, I do not know but it seems like a good way to set myself up for hiking season. I have spoken to Teacher Dave and FAU about getting out and doing some good hikes this spring and summer.

This morning, I had the best of intentions about heading out, but I was also smart enough to realize that attempting it this morning would be a bad idea. That does not mean that I am not
going to attempt a run at lunch. I will keep you in the loop. Not that you care but more so that you can laugh at my stupidity.
*Run with the hunted.

Union Hockey
The Ducthmen have landed!

Doctor Who?!?
I love the 8-bit games based in pop culture. The one for Doctor Who is great.

As River Song would say, "Spoilers!"

Via io9

Superb Sunday

Loving Timeline
Thanks to Facebook Timeline, this photo was commented upon on Facebook Friday and yesterday and that made me happy.

The picture is from June 2010 and it shows TEA and I playing laser-tag after we have suited up. That there were people commenting positively about what is one of the better times that TEA and I have had together made me very happy. Happy about Timeline, social media in general, and the people that are my friends.

The Worst Movie Ever


Are any of you familiar with "Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer"? Yeah, I did not think so. TEA wanted to watch it on Friday night after ribs and fries and I agreed. (NetFlix Instant is great that way.) He fell asleep so we finished it on Saturday. Watch the trailer and then think on this statement from my brother.

"This movie should be subtitled, "Heather Graham needs to pay her mortgage.""

Well played, hermano, well played.

(Janet Varney is in this as well. The reason I bring this up is that I have had a crush on her for a while and last night, like a number of other women I have crushed on from afar, I found out that she had been in a relationship with Chris Hardwick.)

Being active
I thought about taking yesterday off from running and any type of long walk because my butt was really sore. (Yes, I know that some of you are going to run with that statement. Go ahead. It is a gift.) However, around five, I started feeling antsy* and wanted to get out and do something. I did a really abbreviated warm up, three miles, and then a quick cool down. (Most of my runs have been in that range. I need to take a break but I do not want a blank space on my calender.

So, I am trying to figure out what I want to do today. What I really want to do is go for a hike but the weather does not look conducive to it. I should go for a run, which is probably what I am going to do. (I have not even thought of the route. Maybe RT 7 to McChesney and out that way, but...it is cold and wet outside. Oh, and if someone says "What about a treadmill?" they will be dead to me like the others.) I am looking forward to the weather being consistently good so that I can cross train effectively. For now, I am going to do some yoga and meditate about how awesome coffee is. Any ideas, please text me.

If the weather was a little nicer, I would go for a bike ride. Thanks to Google Maps, it would look like an 8 Bit Adventure.

Awesome, no?

Read more about it at io9.com

Nook Tablet
Do you want your Nook Tablet to act more like a Tablet and less like a Nook but you do not want to root it? There is a way to Dual Boot it. FAU, I am thinking of you as I am posting this, but @danap2170, you should try it too.

TEA and Vacation
TEA and I were supposed to go to Florida next week for spring break. See what I did there? Past tense. There are a number of reasons for this but the one that it overriding is that TEA does not want to fly. Going to Florida generally requires the use of an airplane, though there are other ways to do it. Now, I thought about pressing the issues, but I was afraid that his fears would lead to a panic attack on the plane and that would me a) vacation was ruined and b) TEA was traumatized, and here is where my fear would come in...I would be more concerned with spring break being ruined than with my son who was having a panic reaction. I do not ever want to be that dad.

The Great Beer Walk of 2012
I have been doing some asking around and I am trying to gauge the interest for this. It would, in all likelihood, be in either Troy or Schenectady on a late spring or early summer Saturday afternoon. Any preferences?

Feeling Out of Sorts

Maybe it is because the summer is actually over, that it is a rainy Tuesday, or maybe it is because I am coming to terms with time and decadent behavior catching up with me and my increasingly decrepit body, but I am feeling out of sorts. (Hence the post title...see, it does make sense. I am not senile. Get off my lawn.)

I finished two of the four books that I am reading this morning. The Leftovers (Great, and possibly the best book I have read in the last year but the ending seemed too...expected. However, finishing did allow me to finally get around to read Stephen King's review in the Times. Interesting perspective that Mr. King has. I have read someplace that in addition to being a critic, he is also an author. I could see that.) and The Know-It-All and have started The First Days (which isn't as bad as the back cover suggests (watch below) and I have needed to get my zombie on).

One of the reasons I am feeling out of sorts (for the definition, I find this useful.) was because today is the day that I started getting serious (or as serious as I get about anything) about my training and it was hard. Running at quarter to six in the rain was not the optimal time to be doing anything, let alone running on a body that ate well and drank well for the past week (it was my birthday and HJ77 was here for the whole time) but I did it.

While running, a song came on and I found myself singing along with it. This, in and of itself, is not odd as I sing all the time. Not well but I make up for my lack of skill with enthusiasm. First, I was able to run in the rain because HJ77 picked up the iPod shuffle that I had been wanting to pick up for myself but had difficulty ever getting around to purchasing and running with the iPhone instead, which was sub-optimal (Thank you!) and the song that I was singing outloud had been a trigger for a while, creating a cascade of memories and I only realized this as I was getting to the part of the sing-a-long that had always made me laugh. So...this is a goodness, no?

Apart from the searing pain in my chest and my knees aching like they were trying to give birth to their own little knees, the run in the rain went well, and even better, I was able to laugh and sing-a-long to a song that I had not been able to in a while.

Life could be a lot worse, and even then, it would still be okay, if all I have to complain about is my aching knees and the various banalities of everyday existence. One of my friends accused me of being less fun because I was happy. He did not apologize for that (nor did I expect him to. He has a reputation to maintain.) when we had dinner last night, but he said he was glad for me.

They keep coming

The they referenced in the title are my dreams. I was afraid to go to sleep last night because of what my subconscious was going to do to punish me. (Yes, sometimes my dreams bother me so much that I put off sleep.) I should have listened to the voice of fear and not slept but no, my body requires it for six hours or so per night and I needed to listen to my body.

That doesn't mean that I was able to turn off my mind.

These dream as a series of vignettes where a person I care about decided that it was in her best interests to torture me using various methods and in several locales.

It was awesome.

Then adding injury to insult, I decided to go for a run this morning and (because I am a idiot of the highest order) did not warm up properly. No, I didn't cool down properly either. Somewhere along the way I did something to my right thigh and now every time I cough of laugh a not so nice feeling runs down the inside of my leg.

I will try to avoid both coughing and laughing.