The Hungry Runner

I went for a “long” run today, which means I get to write LR in the training log for the first time in a long time.  What is the world coming to… next I will be writing CT and PPM, and running all out timed miles each week down the street by myself.  Sorry, the only people who know what this means have PAAVO t-shirts in their closets and are probably not reading this.

So anyway… I discovered a new trail and a farmer’s market during my run.  Maybe I should start making a habit of this?  It is nice to go for a run and have a good reason to carry a very slow pace.  Now the next thing I have to work on is finding a time to run that isn’t 80 - 90 degrees and extremely humid.  One thing at a time I suppose.

Maybe I will look for an upcoming race to run to give myself some motivation!

Tags: columbus, running

The weather has been so nice the past few weekends in Columbus, so I’ve been taking longer and longer bike rides lately. I would normally go for about 45 minutes to an hour, and by pushing the pace a little it would end up being a good workout. Then a few weekends ago I found a longer route that took me into a more rural area. This ended up being about 2 hours, and I did this a few times. I really enjoy riding through the corn fields and deserted roads. Finally last weekend I woke up to a perfect sunny and 70 degree day, so I decided to try a new route. I stumbled onto River Road, and as you can imagine by the name it was an amazing ride. Check out the photo- can you believe that is an actual road? In the end I think it ended up being about a 35 mile ride, and with a few stops to rest and drink water it ended up being about 3 hours. Now I am addicted! My post ends here so that I can get back out there to enjoy it again. (Note to self: bring food this time!)

http://twitpic.com/6ran5

Tags: bike route, columbus, Ohio

This past winter there were many Sunday night roasted chickens, most of which involved a beer can.  Whether the beer was in my hand or jammed inside the chicken with some lime wedges this always proved to be a good way to enjoy the last few hours of weekend.  

The notable tip I have from this is how to use the leftovers to make some soup that makes the cold winter weather a little less horrible.  Since I usually just re-post recipes I have found online, please bear with me as I try to write my own here.  My cooking style entails a carefully thought out process of throwing ingredients into a pot until it tastes good, so I will attempt to re-create this process below so that you (and me, in the future) can enjoy this soup the way I made it.  Please use your own discretion with my “a few” and “some” quantities of measurement.  And let’s be honest, in the middle of winter it is going to be canned and frozen foods so please don’t judge.

Ingredients:

• Most of a beer can roasted chicken, whole with lime wedges.
• A few TBSP olive oil
• 2 or 3 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
• 1 onion, finely diced
• A few splashes of hot sauce
• 2 shakes of crushed red pepper
• A little bit of cider vinegar (few tablespoons)
• Small clump of brown sugar
• 2 cans seasoned tomatoes (diced, crushed, whatever) - jalepeno seasoned is good
• The leftover pasta sauce from spaghetti last night
• ~2 cups frozen corn
• Some pasta (I use acini di pepe), or rice, or potatoes if all else fails.

Take all of the chicken meat off the bones.  Put the bones in a big pot and fill it up 1/3 - half way with cold water.  Pour some of the beer / lime juice left in the can into the pot.  (only a few tablespoons)  Add some salt, pepper, and thyme.  Put this on the stove and simmer for a few hours.  Once the water actually tastes like chicken stock, you can begin making the soup!

Get a big frying pan.  sauté the onion in the olive oil.  When the onion pieces are clear and slightly browned, add the garlic.  When garlic is slightly browned, turn up the heat and add hot sauce, crushed red pepper flakes, cider vinegar, and brown sugar.  Let it really sizzle and spatter for a minute or two, scraping the bowl so that nothing sticks.

Quickly add the cans of tomato and pasta sauce and turn down the heat to just let it summer simmer (I hate winter).  While simmering, cut the chicken into 1 ~ 2 inch long pieces, and pull it apart with the grain.  Basically shred the chicken.  Put it into the frying pan.  When it begins to boil again, put the frozen corn in.

Strain the stock from the bones.  Put the pasta in the big pot with the stock and let everything just chill for a few minutes at their respective heat on the stove.

OK!  this has been cooking for 2 or 3 hours and nobody has eaten any soup yet.  Add the frying pan to the now noodle filled stock.  Let it all simmer together for another 20 or 30 minutes (sorry).  While you are waiting you could fry some tortillas cut into strips in a little oil…

Now, serve the soup.  Add fried tortillas and shredded cheddar on top.  If you have the luck that I did the taste will be worth the wait, and then also keep in mind that the time spent is completely worthwhile when you are still re-heating this soup 2 or 3 days later for quick dinners.

Tags: beer can chicken, chicken soup, chicken soup recipe, recipe

I tried to make some bread today, but after waiting a few hours for the beginning parts of the recipe I managed to ruin the dough.

Since it feels like it could snow inside my house today, I decided to help the yeast along by warming the dough slightly.  I had the microwave or the oven as my choices.  The microwave could probably do a good job on power level 1 to slowly warm the dough, and the oven set to 100 degrees would do the same.  Since I had it covered with tinfoil I decided the oven was my best bet.  So I set it to warm / 100 degrees and went on my way.

A few minutes later I was brought back to the oven by the smell of burning towel.  Somehow the oven took it upon itself to continue heating past 100 degrees.  In the end I salvaged some uncooked dough, and even though it wouldn’t rise anymore I turned it into a small loaf of very heavy bread.  

Even through all of my mistakes this bread still tastes completely amazing!  It is made with a heavy porter beer, some honey, and wheat flour.  I can only imagine how it will taste when I make it again correctly!  So even though I don’t know exactly how this bread should turn out, I want to pass on the recipe because of the prospect it seems to have (when someone besides me makes it).

Link to the recipe here:

Beer Bread

Link to the main page:

Tags: beer, bread, yeast

No, I haven’t been too lazy to write a post.  I have been too lazy to run.  Therefore I have nothing to write about.  It is pretty much the story of my running life…  I train really hard for a little while and get in some kind of shape to run races, and then randomly stop running for a few weeks or months, just coasting off of the previous training.  

Now is one of those times, except the previous training has all worn off.  But as painful as it is to run, it’s never bad.  Just knowing that you are breaking the streak of laziness makes it all worthwhile.  Its crazy, but I can recall most of the things going through my mind on those “first day back” runs in the past.  The only thing I ever think about are the races a few months away that I promise myself I will be in really good shape for.  It sounds sad, but I basically daydream about winning the races.  

Today’s run was different.  I was just happy to be out for a run.  I didn’t want anything more.  I wasn’t thinking about workouts or races.  Going for a run just because I enjoy it?  I think I could get used to this.

Tags: run, tired

For all of those close calls where you are out there running and some 16 year old talking on a cell phone almost smacks their car into you you begin to think…  the odds are that at some point one of these maniac drivers is going to run me over.  Well, you would be right.

Every time I move and find a new group of people to run with, there are always stories exchanged during the cool-down or on an easy run.  I know all about how that guy felt when he won the 5K indoor championship in 14:34, or the amazing prospect that next year’s local high school cross country team has.  It seems like someone always brings up the story of how they were hit by a car.  So that means one of two things:  Either every runner has at one point in their life been hit by a car, or my memory is not so good and that guy with the car crash story was me every time.  

Regardless, my story takes place in Scottsdale, Arizona on the streets outside of a local high school, about 3 years ago.  Every week a group of runners would meet up at the high school and run workouts on the track.  This particular evening the football team happened to show up for practice, so our half mile repeats were moved to the sidewalk.  

So if I remember correctly, the dozen or so repeats we did that evening accounted for about ten seconds of the workout, and the car crash took up the other 45 minutes.  (Or so it felt.)  It was one of the last intervals, and it began just as monotonously as the others.  The sun was setting now, causing that sort of dusk that makes it difficult to see…  you can probably guess where this is heading.

Almost exactly at the 400 meter mark a car pulls up to our workout road.  It stops at the stop sign as we approach.  As we get closer, it begins to pull forward but then suddenly hits the brakes again.  In all of my infinite wisdom, I decide that he must have just seen us and decided to stop and wait for us to pass by.  Of course the world revolves completely around running so there is no way he was stopping for any other reason but in awe of us.  As this was the rare interval that I was actually leading the pack, I paid no attention to the route that my fellow workout partners chose and I headed out in front of the car.

OK, I know what you may be thinking…  Everyone else has NEAR car crash experiences because they are smart enough to move out of the way or stop at the last minute to avoid it.  Even though I was choosing to run in front of a car at a time of evening when it is very difficult to see, I must add something in my own defense.  We were running the intervals at about 2:30 each.  This is 5 minute mile pace.  5 minute mile pace is 12 mph.  I had to choose in a split second through the dehydration and fatigue induced fog in my head which way to go.  Once chosen, there is not much changing or stopping that can be done at 12 mph.  

So, to get back to it…  The driver hits the gas at the exact moment that I begin to cross into his view.  I hammer into the front side of the car, spinning completely around, wiping out down the side of his car as he frantically jams on the brake.  In my acrobatic attempt to stay out of the actual path of the car I manage to rip off the side mirror, shattering it into the door panel.  A streak of sweat marks my path of destruction, which includes a dent in the door, caused by either the mirror or my body.  As I complete the spin my hand touches the ground, but the rest of me stays up!  Somehow after all of that I don’t even fall over!  At this point everyone running with me has stopped, and the man has gotten out of his car.  

I assure everyone that I am OK, as the man begins to stream apologies at me.  Then come the excuses.  Upon realizing that I actually was perfectly fine and unharmed he then tried to hug me!  It may have been the sweat dripping from me or the fact that I was pushing him away, but he decided that maybe a hug was a bad idea.  

So as it turns out, the past two paragraphs actually happened over the course of about ten or so seconds, and we immediately got back into the second half of the 800 meter interval.  Once we finished and started jogging back to the start line everyone obviously began to talk about what had just happened.  Jokingly I asked the guy with the watch how fast we ran that one.  

“2:25,” he said.  

“I knew it,” I replied back, “I definitely ran faster with all of that adrenaline the second half.”

“Yeah I also never paused my watch when we stopped,” he adds.  

So as anti-climactic as it is, I was completely unharmed during the making of this story.  The driver, however, wishes he could say the same for his car.  So in the end was I hit by a car, or did I do the hitting?  Who was the victim here?  Hmm… Maybe this wasn’t a case of a crash at all.

The Score:

Runners: 1

Drivers: 0

Tags: arizona, crash, running, workout

6:00am - wake up.

7:00am - leave home.

7:30am - arrive at work.

8:00pm - leave work.

8:30pm - arrive home.

8:45pm - eat dinner.

9:30pm - write post.

10:00pm - go to bed.

Tags: beer, karoshi, labatt, running

I think there must be a point after many years of running that everyone develops that nagging injury that just sticks around for good.  At 23 years old I was running an 8k cross country race each Saturday, and following it up with a 20+ mile run the following Sunday morning.  Now at 25 I can’t make it to ten miles before having to stop and stretch every 5 minutes.  If I race a 5k I usually need the following day off to loosen up and stretch out!  

I have self diagnosed (while massaging my own butt) that I suffer from Piriformis Syndrome.  This stupid, easily aggravated muscle tightens up while running, or sometimes just when it feels that I haven’t suffered enough lately.  It begins to pinch the sciatic nerve, just enough to cause discomfort and make it tough to keep running.  

From experience I can say that if you just keep running (since you would be a wimp to let pain stop you) that you are “walking” the fine line between recovery and destruction.  Some instances convinced me that pushing through the pain actually prolongs it the next time.  8 miles of pain today means 10 miles of comfort next time!  However, the other 50% of the time those 8 painful miles result in a week of trying to stretch and recover to fix whatever damage I did.

I don’t think I can win.  No orthopedic surgeons have helped me, but a chiropractor was able to loosen everything up and give me the stretches that help me today.  Of all of these specialists, the internet is the only thing that has actually given me the name of a syndrome that actually matches all of my symptoms.  I don’t know if this is good or bad, but it beats throwing your hands in the air not knowing what is wrong with your patient.  So until a doctor can actually diagnose me, I have Piriformis Syndrome.

Tags: 5K, butt, piriformis, running, sciatica

Do:

• Eat $3 burgers at Brazenhead Pub on Wednesday nights.
• Enjoy a glass of wine with dinner.
• Chill out in front of the TV.

Tags: brazenhead, burger, tv, wine

After 10 or more hours of sitting practically motionless at my desk, I usually walk outside and can’t wait to go for a run.  No matter what the weather is like or how late it is, my body just wants to move.  So I get to my car, climb inside, crank the music, and sit there for another half hour.  Thirty minutes on one road in one direction at the end of a tiring day can ruin anyone’s motivation.  It is not very often that I get home from work and actually want to go running.  I want to get in shape and be a fast runner, but I only ever feel like turning on the TV and eating until I can barely breath.  Everyone knows this feeling.  You should be doing one thing, but really it is the last thing you feel like doing. 

Just force it to happen!  It is sometimes the toughest thing to do, but every single time I have dragged myself outside to run it turns into a good experience.  Maybe it is because no matter what you do out there - 6 minute miles or 12 minute miles - it is still better than sitting on the couch.  One day off always turns into a week off, which has for me in the past turned into eventually having to start completely over.

So far I know nobody is reading this, but I just need to remind myself sometimes.  If I write it down I won’t forget, and it turns into a promise to myself.  It is always worth getting out there and running.  Besides, that may be the day you break a personal record, find $10, or just keep the running streak alive.

Tags: dinner, mr. t, running