Chalk the Wagon or Attempt to Ford?

Remember how I said I'm OCD about making loops?  Well, I like crossing the river, but the bridges that allow foot traffic aren't really near each other so I've been holding off on making a loop on any runs that go across it.  Until now.


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It took a lot longer than I was expecting.  I lost a lot of steam after about four miles.  The last couple of days have really taken it out of my legs, so I've earned a down day or two.


I snapped this picture so I could have a sense of scale about my run.  I found a landmark I could spot from the first bridge and looked up the distance later.

See that white dot above the tree line? That's a water tower.  It's two miles by way the crow flies, 2.3 miles by foot from this bridge.

From schizorunnia

Oh, and I was pissed at this van until I realized it confirmed my theory about how my digital camera works.

Neat, huh?  Okay, maybe I'm just a nerd.

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This is another shot I snapped from the bridge.  The river is still flooding.

Hang on, little trees!

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Which led me to a problem.  I was concerned that river road on the other side of the river was going to be flooded because it's significantly lower than river road on our side.  It was actually fine, and I ran all the way to one of the parks along the river with no issues.  The reason for the detour through the park was twofold:  I was thirsty and I knew there was a water fountain, and cutting through the park would cut about ten minutes from my route.

Bless you, fountain of life!

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Only problem with that plan was that the park's trails run even lower than river road.  I thought the one path that sits a little higher would be fine, but...

F-that!

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They could've told me this a half a mile ago, but they waited until it would cause me to add another mile onto my already 14.5 mile run.  No thanks.  So what did I do?

Artist's rendering of ensuing decision.

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And that was that.

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You can kind of see two ladies on the bank I just left, pondering what to do.  Be a hero!

Anyway, I made it home about forty minutes later, which was longer than I was hoping for because Sara and I wanted to see the first matinée of Kung Fu Panda 2.  But we still made it for the second, and it was pretty epic.  Not quite the same feel as the first one, but I still enjoyed it.  I'll watch it again.

Noms Below!

Sara and I were going to go see Kung Fu Panda 2 today, but circumstances beyond our control made it so we couldn't.  That meant I got to do something else fun, though!

Not only did I go for a run, but I got to test the precision of two of my running instruments.  I wore my old Garmin GPS watch and used my cell phone's GPS and compared the two.

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From

That's pretty close, I'd say.


This was the first time in a while that I've done a faster run, and the only time I've tried to up the pace barefoot.  The feet were a limiting factor, but not as much as my criminal negligence towards speed work.


I got back just in time...not too long after my run I snapped these images using my video camera.

From schizorunnia

From schizorunnia

From schizorunnia

Neat, huh?


Oh, I promised noms!


Dry team:
6 cups of Kashi (300g, almost a whole box)
1 1/2 cups oatmeal (100g)
1 1/4 cups PB2 (175g) - PB2 is peanut butter powder, it's awesome!
2 scoops protein powder (60g)
1 oz sunflower seeds (28g)
2 oz raisins (60g)


Wet team:
1 16oz carton of egg whites (452g)
1 tablespoon vanilla (.016g)


I meant to add old mushy bananas to the wet team, but I forgot.  I will in the future.  And also pureed pumpkin this fall.


Anyway, bake at 325 degrees for 32 minutes.  They come out soft and chewie. 


Stats:  Makes about 15 bars at just under 200 calories apiece.  1/15th of a recipe has:


2.5g fat
25.5g carbs
17.7g protein


By calorie, they are 11.5% fat, 52.5% carbs, and 36.3% protein.  Not bad.

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Mariachis!

My wife calls my shoes 'mariachis' because she can't remember 'huaraches'.

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I look properly anachronistic, aside from the Bluetooth headset...



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As you can see, I ran over the Maumee River today, which is mildly flooding yet again.

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That speck under that tree is the only guy attempting to fish in the turbid, floody river.

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A few weeks ago I was running down there.  Now it's under a few feet of water.

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Things were going perfectly well with my huaraches for the first 25 minutes, which took me just over the river and into Maumee.

No issues!

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So what did I do?  I took 'em off.

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It was way more difficult trying to keep them strapped to my body than it was running with them on my feet.  Proof of concept, though; now I can go on barefoot runs with shoes tied to my body.  If my feet get too beat up or I step on a hypodermic needle or something I can have some shoes to finish my run without having to carry my FiveFingers or anything.


I ran for a little more than an hour (about seven miles) barefoot.  I'm getting better at it and it's hurting less, but it's still painful at times.

Accident

I woke up this morning feeling about 90% so I wanted to go for a run.  After breakfast I was letting my food settle, and found that I was slowly losing the battle to stay awake.  This was after a good 9.5 hours of sleep.


At 11:00 I lost that battle and slept until 2.  It was still early on a really nice day outside, though, so I took off.


That's when I had my accident.  My legs were lethargic after being sick and not running for a few days, which was fine since I didn't want to push it anyway.  I thought I'd do a few miles and call it a day.


Then a thing happened:


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I don't know, I felt good after two miles.  That, and I thought that loop would be more like six miles and not nine.  So I accidentally ran nine miles.  It happens.


Nothing much to report from that run.  I did see a mostly radially symetrical house which was kind of fun:

From schizorunnia

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Goosens

This was just before my run, but they were cute.  There were two families, replete with mommy and daddy goose.

Geeses and goslingi Fun fact:  Geese mate for life.

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My wife has been deathly ill, and this morning I woke up nursing the virus to health in my throat.  I went to work and felt worse as the day went on, so of course I went to the gym and running afterwards.

In my defense, sometimes continuing to exercise helps me kick an illness.  The other outcome is it makes me feel worse.  Well, I don't feel better yet...maybe worse since the run.


The run wasn't bad, though.  At one point O.D.O.T gave me my very own running lane.  Wasn't that nice of them?

Thanks, ODOT! Fun inference:  I didn't stop to take this picture. The telephone pole is not curved like that in real life, so I think my phone snaps different regions of the photo at different times, much like how your eye gets confused by a 'rubber pencil'.

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I hope I can sleep this off.  Maybe half a bottle of Nyquil will help.

Should I?

Looks a little foreboding. Should I?

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I did.

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I hadn't been barefoot for over a week.  I found a nice patch of grass I wanted to run on:

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But there was a grounds keeper and the gate was locked, so I didn't hop it or anything. Next time.

So I was running along, minding my own business, when I stumbled across one quarter-acre of Clovis:

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Naturally, I ran away.

I rounded the park/golf course in the middle of town and rubber-necked while I watched some guys chip onto the green.  Or attempt.  Yes, I'm the jerk who records you flubbing a shot directly into the bunker ten feet in front of you:

From schizorunnia

From schizorunnia

Actually, the reason I was so interested is because this guy chipped into the bunker, dropped another ball, chipped onto the green, and then got his putter out of his bag. I wanted to see if he was actually going to take a mulligan or if he just wanted to take the practice swing.

I'm convinced that there is one dichotamic set of human characteristics that is overlooked but extremely telling: people who understand games and those who don't. I don't get the dishonesty that goes on in games. Part of the fun is in losing and figuring out how not to the next time you play. A lot of "golfers" record a score minus the kicks around trees and shifts out of divots. How can you ever have an honest assessment of yourself? How do you feel good about a round full of legitimate pars and birdies when you normally get them with a few dozen mulligans?

Anyways, I was glad to see this particular guy head for the sand trap after the extra ball. And he had a good pitch onto the green from the bunker.

So I was heading back to campus through downtown and I stopped to take this picture:

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Kind of funny, I guess, but I wasn't doing anything it told me not too. But then I found THIS...
Should I?

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I did.

It's a good thing no one reads this.

The Trailhead

An appropriate backdrop for my first blog post ever, I think: I went in search of a trailhead.

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As you may be able to guess by the out-and-back 'tail' in the southwest corner, I found it.

Today was one of those days where I needed some sort of task in order to convince myself to run.  A lot of people think that after someone self-identifies as a runner they are on some sort of freakish autopilot, which is not the case at all.  Sartre tells us that we are condemned to be free, and I believe it; during some workouts it's a continuous string of decisions to continue running.

Jean-Paul Sartre

French Existentialist

Famous for:

"Man is condemned to be free."

Tapping Simone de Beauvoire

Thinking so hard he went cross-eyed

Last week I saw the Slippery Elm Trail on a map and I figured it couldn't be too hard to find.  I would just head south and then west until I ran into it.  About the time I found Kenwood Elementary School, I was losing faith, though, and I only wanted to be out for about 40 minutes so I knew I'd have to turn around soon.  They had a solar panel attached to their school, which I snapped a photo of because I like such things:

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And then I started around the little gravel track out back.  That's when I noticed a little trail into the woods and thought, "What the hell?"

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When I emerged from the woods I decided I probably wasn't going to find the trail today, but then I noticed this:

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Don't see it?  It's over by the cars:

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The bike sign looked promising:

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Success!  Now, I'm not a fan of out-and-back runs--in fact, when I don't make loops it drives me nuts--but I think I'll make an exception if I get this kind of scenery for 13 miles:

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I ran down the trail for a few minutes, and after taking a picture of this lady and her dog I turned around and went back to the office.  That was just over 5 miles and just under 40 minutes.  It was about 45 degrees outside and drizzling, but it was a good run.