Summer Running - Share the Love

One of the best things about running in Texas summertime is that you finish every run looking like you've just climbed out of a swimming pool. No obvious advantage you may think, until you factor in Gavin. Every time I get home from a run, he's waiting for me. "Sweaty me, daddy" he'll shout, and I'll chase him around the house until I catch him, wrestle him to the floor and make sure he gets a good faceful of my sweaty running shirt.

Of course, once he's been "sweatied" he then becomes part of my posse and urges me to sweaty mummy and Dylan as well. Many is the time Nancy's threatened me with a spatula or other kitchen weapon if I get any closer. Dreadful behavior on her part when you consider my only crime is to want to hug my wife!!!

This morning was a particularly good one. Gavin didn't want to get up to go to school, I was soaked after a very humid early morning run, and he got well and truly sweatied.


The semi-veggie experiment is still going well. I've found a website called the Savvy Vegetarian which has a bunch of really good recipes. I've tried several quinoa, lentil and kale dishes, but my favorite by far is the curried chickpeas. I served it with some egg fried brown rice and it was delicious. Today I'm going to try the mango quinoa salad.


Yesterday evening I met Alan and Erik for a trail run, and Alan brought me some roma tomatoes he'd grown. They look really good and I think I'm going to be making some pico de gallo tonight.

It's funny - when I was carrying that muscle strain a few weeks ago, Alan gave me all sorts of hell. All the "old grandpa" jokes came out, so I was looking forward to getting my revenge last night.

The tomatoes did make me think twice, but only for a split second. It's far too much fun to stand at the top of a hill and watch him cuss me!!!

England's Next Opening Batsman

Dylan turned 11 months old last week and he celebrated by figuring out that he could walk without holding onto anything. Since discovering this, he's been trundling around the house at pace, big grin on his face and giggling like a madman. At some point midweek he was inspired by the world cup and started kicking a little soccer ball around as he went.

This weekend he discovered cricket. The bat in the photos above is one I got off ebay when Gavin was a baby. It's been used extensively in many hard-fought games of "corridor cricket" between the Gavster and myself, so I was delighted when Dylan took to it this morning.

I guess he'd been watching us, because he got hold of the bat and stood there waiting for us to throw the ball at him. When I did, he swung, connected and laughed. We ended up playing for a good hour, during which he hit everything that came past.

Including my knee and a pot of basil!!!

Nancy went out on Friday night, so after we put Dylan to bed Gavin and I watched "The Wolfman". It was full moon this weekend (and there was a really cool lunar eclipse on Saturday morning), so last night Gavin wanted to go "werewolf hunting" with me. We walked around the neighborhood enjoying a beautiful full moon, looking for werewolves and quoting parts of the movie to each other. Gavin asked me what we would do if we found a werewolf, as we didn't have any silver. I told him I didn't need any because I was an ace werewolf hunter and all the werewolves were afraid of me.

He was suitably impressed.

I also got some good miles in this weekend - 13 on Saturday and another 8 this morning. I was pretty pleased with that, especially as I'd started adding weighted squats and lunges back into my workouts during the week which left my legs a little sore.

Yesterday I felt good until we hit the hike and bike trail for the last few miles. For some reason I seem to have a mental blindspot on that trail and lose all motivation (even when I was in top shape for Rocky Raccoon a few years ago I struggled on it). I chickened out at mile 12, skipped across the Lamar bridge and finished up by running on the North side for the last mile and a bit, which seems to be a lot better (and shaves off about half a mile).

I have the El Scorcho 50k coming up in about 4 weeks time, but at this time of year I'm not looking for a fast time and am using it as a glorified long run. I also have no race plans for this coming winter, so maybe I need to sit down and come up with a few goals to aim for.

Hopefully that will give me some consistency.

The Cheating Vegetarian

I am in the middle of a world-cup inspired day off, and very glad I am to have taken it off too. As they're playing the final group games simultaneously, I had my work cut out this morning switching back and forth between the England and the USA games in group C. Very exciting - talk about leaving it to the last minute (literally).

I'm now sitting here ready for the next set of games (group D) to see who England and the USA will be playing in the next round. Could be any of Germany, Ghana and Serbia - more exciting stuff.

The house is filled with the delicious aroma of my lentil stew, which is simmering away nicely on the stove. I have some brown rice cooling in the fridge (to go into some Chinese fried rice), and a big batch of quinoa cooling in the pot (for lemon cumin quinoa salad with avocado). Going to be good eats for the next few days.

And you may have noticed that there is a distinct vegetarian look to the above dishes. The reason for that is that I've been reading a lot about the health benefits of a vegetarian diet - one that is high in whole grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables.

That's not to say that I'm going strictly vegetarian any time soon - I'm not going to cut off a vital protein source for Gavin and Dylan - it's just that I want to explore what effect a shift in emphasis toward these foods will have on my running and general well-being.

Funny story - I remember my parents once accused me of "going vegan" when I decided to stop eating deep fried foods.

To the best of my knowledge, a vegan is not somebody who decides to forego fish and chips.

However, I have discovered that there are several categories of vegetarian, based on whether they do or don't eat fish or eggs or dairy products or combinations thereof. I think the one that comes closest to me is flexitarian (or semi-veggie).

Though I much prefer my own terms - "cheating vegetarian", or "carnivore in disguise" - haha.

Ok, they're about to kickoff. Some good football and a big bowl of lentil stew is calling me.

If I'm really good, I may even get the bike trainer out while I watch it.

Healthy Running

When you run a lot, you often find yourself grumbling when a training run doesn't quite go to plan, or you don't do as well as you'd hoped at some race. But after having to take this week off to heal an annoying muscle strain, it was just a pleasure to be able to run pain-free again this morning.

Which begs the question, how much is our physical performance really influenced by our mental state? If Little Rock was anything to go by, the answer is quite a lot.

And after not running since Monday I was raring to go - I felt strong, with plenty in reserve, and enjoyed myself. And best of all, no pain - it just felt good to be back out stretching my legs.

Now I need to get back to formulating good training habits. After all, El Scorcho is only about 5 weeks away.

I did 8 miles today, and since we started so early I was able to get home and get a lot of things done while waiting for the World Cup games to start. I mixed and kneaded my bread dough and started it rising (made wonderful grilled sandwiches for lunch), made blueberry pancakes for breakfast (with syrup, butter and whipped cream - yummy), and cut and edged the grass before it got too hot.

Tomorrow is Father's Day. Nancy's been asking me what I want, but the fact is I already have everything I want. So she's letting me watch all the World Cup games I want this weekend, and she and the boys are going to make one of my favorite dinners - New York strip steak with twice baked potato (fully loaded) and brown rice, followed by peach cobbler and ice cream for dessert.

Though I am going to insist on grilling the steaks myself - there are some things I just can't give up control of, and my barbecue is one of them.

Memories of South Africa

The soccer world cup currently taking place in South Africa brings back wonderful memories. Back in 1995 I spent a month backpacking around the country, from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth, Pretoria, Jo'burg, Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal etc etc.

The picture above is me on top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, November 1995. I still remember that day - standing on the very Southern tip of the African continent, with the ocean spread out on one side of me and the African plains on the other.

There was a wonderful feeling of hope in the Country. Mandela was president, South Africa had won the rugby world cup on home soil earlier that year, and it was an exciting and vibrant place to be.

And the beer was dirt cheap - great times!!!

Gaslight Anthem

Chuck is one of my favorite tv shows. The writing is clever, quirky and funny, and it showcases some great songs by lesser-known bands. One of the songs featured on a recent episode was "Here's Looking at you, Kid" by the Gaslight Anthem. I liked it so much that I downloaded their entire album, and they've become one of my favorite bands. They're an interesting mix of Springsteen and Tom Petty, with a little Kings of Leon thrown in.

Very laid back - definitely my kind of music.

On the running front, I did not have a good trail run Monday evening. The extra pounding of the technical trail played havoc with whatever this muscle strain is. I was still feeling it yesterday - like having a constant stitch in your solar plexis, or that feeling you get when you've just released an ab hold and your abs are sore.

I wanted to make sure it wasn't my appendix, so I went to the doctor's this morning. The doc wasn't sure what it was either - he told me to take it easy for the rest of the week and let it work itself out.

Who knows what I did. Maybe I'm just getting old - I don't think there's a cure for that!!!

Answers to the Brain Teasers

Here are the answers to the brain teasers I posted last week.


1. An Arab sheikh tells his two sons to race their camels to a distant city to see who will inherit his fortune. The one whose camel is slower wins. After wandering aimlessly for days, the brothers ask a wise man for guidance. Upon receiving the advice, they jump on the camels and race to the city as fast as they can.

What did the wise man say to them?


Answer : He told them to switch camels



2. There are ten tennis ball manufacturing machines. All but one manufacture the balls with exactly the same weight (100 gms each) . The faulty machine is manufacturing tennis balls with a weight of either 99 gms each or 101 gms each. You are allowed only one weighing to find the faulty machine and also tell if the faulty machine is manufacturing heavier balls or lighter balls.

How can you tell that?


Answer : Number the machines from 1 to 10. Take 1 ball from machine 1, 2 from machine 2, 3 from machine 3 etc and weigh them all at once. If all machines were functioning as they should, they would add up to 5500gms. If they weigh more than that, the faulty machine is manufacturing heavier balls. If they weigh less, it's manufacturing lighter balls. The difference between the weighed total and 5500gms will tell you which machine is the faulty one.

A Stitch in Time?

I had an "interesting" run Sunday morning. I suspect I'd strained some stomach/abdominal/intercostal/who the heck knows muscles the day before, because I found right from the start that breathing while running was painful - it felt like a constant stitch in the solar plexis immediately below the diaphragm. Taking a deep breath was almost impossible, limiting me to slightly less painful shallow breathing - not great when it's already super muggy.

It was a strange situation to be in - not even half a mile into the run and I was half tuning into the conversation while wondering how I was going to make it the whole way. I kept taking two fingers and digging them into the area directly below my ribcage. Fortunately, after a few miles it eased up somewhat. Breathing became a little easier, and the second half of the run was a lot more comfortable.

Thankfully I finished the 8 miles with my pride intact (good old British stiff upper lip). I even managed to explain some of the intricacies behind soccer's offside rules!!!

This morning I was supposed to meet a friend early for a downtown run, but I was the only one who showed up (note to self - check your emails before going to bed). That was actually a stroke of luck, as I could dial down the pace somewhat. While it felt much better than Sunday, and I had no real breathing problems, anything faster than an 8:30 pace was still uncomfortable. So I kept it around a 9 minute mile, and it ended up being a nice run over some rolling hills - there was even a slight breeze to ease the humidity slightly.

I'm leading a hilly trail run this evening, so I'll see how it goes there. To anyone in my trail group who's reading this - today is probably the best opportunity you're going to get to kick my a$$!!!

On the plus side, I've now run 5 days in a row (including two 4am wake-up calls). Still working on that "habit forming" thing, but it's a start.

I wonder if I can make it 6 tomorrow.

World Cup

As a Welshman living in the USA, several folks have asked me who I'm going to be rooting for in today's England vs USA world cup match, especially with the popularity of ABE (Anyone but England) amongst my compatriots.

But for me, there's no question - I'm rooting for England all the way. I'm British and don't see how I could be anything else.

Besides, any team that features Shrek as its star striker has to be a good bet.

Breakthrough

When my alarm went off at 4am this morning I actually got up and ran. I did 7 miles at a steady 8:20 pace - nothing spectacular on what was a muggy morning, but the point is I actually had the discipline to get up super early and go run without the incentive of meeting somebody. I haven't done that in a while.

I feel very pleased with myself. Now if I can only make a habit out of it!!!

Graduations

Americans love graduations. You pretty much graduate from everywhere - you simply can't get away from it. They love a good graduation ceremony almost as much as us Brits love "a nice cup of tea" (preferably with a couple of digestive biscuits (cookies) for dunking). I even remember our old dog "graduating" from dog training class (and yes, of course I heckled)!!!

Conversely, the only time I ever went to a graduation ceremony in good old Blighty was when I finished university (and even then my parents made me go). When we finished our equivalent of high school, the teachers were just happy to kick us out the door and be rid of us. We went back one morning during the holidays to pick up our exam results from the school office and that was pretty much it.

Anyway, the reason for this aside is that I am dipping my toes in Americana tomorrow as Gavin "graduates" from daycare (maybe I should bring apple pie??), and they are having a graduation ceremony at which he is responsible for reciting the months of the year. Nice, though perhaps he would be more at home (and much more entertaining) lecturing on the methodologies behind the destruction of vampires.

Seems much more his style somehow.

Brain Teasers

Here are a couple of brain teasers/logic puzzles that a business associate sent me recently. They are designed to test how well you can think out of the box (a very important attribute in my line of work). Can you figure them out? I'll post the answers in a few days.

And yes, in case you were wondering I solved both of them.


1. An Arab sheikh tells his two sons to race their camels to a distant city to see who will inherit his fortune. The one whose camel is slower wins. After wandering aimlessly for days, the brothers ask a wise man for guidance. Upon receiving the advice, they jump on the camels and race to the city as fast as they can.

What did the wise man say to them?


2. There are ten tennis ball manufacturing machines. All but one manufacture the balls with exactly the same weight (100 gms each) . The faulty machine is manufacturing tennis balls with a weight of either 99 gms each or 101 gms each. You are allowed only one weighing to find the faulty machine and also tell if the faulty machine is manufacturing heavier balls or lighter balls.

How can you tell that?

Good Running

I put in some solid runs this weekend. On Saturday, I met up with Steve, Frank and Meghan for 13 miles of hills. We kept a good pace going (8:30 average) in some hot and humid conditions, and I felt strong - much better than last week. Frank had stashed some iced water and orange slices at the 7 mile mark, and they were greatly appreciated. So too was the wonderful shade coming down Shoal Creek. Most welcome on what was a hot and humid day.

I got home to do some babysitting as Nancy was meeting up with some friends to go shopping. I wanted to make a quick lunch for us boys, so I decided on sandwiches. I make sourdough bread most weekends, so I cut some thick slices and spread them with some mayo. I laid them open and filled the bottoms with spinach, crispy bacon and pepperoni, and the tops with Havarti cheese. I grilled them open-faced under the broiler for about a minute, and added some sliced avocado just before I closed and sliced them. Gavin and I wolfed them down - they were delicious, and I discovered that Dylan absolutely LOVES Avocado.

I've been having some Achilles niggles for a few weeks now - nothing that would stop me running, but it's noticeable and I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I didn't think it was the Achilles itself, so I traced the pain further up my calf and found a huge knot just below my knee. I iced it, blasted it with the stick, and got Nancy to dig her elbow into it and try to work it out. It hurt, but it worked because it felt so much better after that.

Sunday morning I picked up Naresh to do 10 miles of road hills around Ladera Norte. We started at 6am, and the humidity was stifling - the air felt heavy. Despite this, we had a nice run. The Achilles felt much better, though Naresh noticed I was slightly favoring my left leg - the right one was still bruised from the massage!!! It was good to spend some time with Naresh who has been struggling through some injury problems, but he's such a strong runner. Especially going uphill!!!

We finished in time to change into trail shoes and get some more hills around the trails of Bull Creek. By the time we were done, we really were done.

I drove home to find Nancy and the boys at the school near our house. Gavin was running loops, and Nancy was timing him. He did 10 of them, and he was going full out for every one.

We hoped it would tire him out.

No such luck. I would love to take a nap this afternoon, but I don't think Gavin is going to cooperate - that boy does not believe in naps, and his little brother is taking after him. They're both wonderful boys, but they are also both very high energy, with wicked looks in their eyes and mischief in their souls.

You definitely need to be in shape to look after them!!!

Big Blokes who Roll Around a Lot

Gavin and me "getting in the mood"

Gavin and I have been engaging in a battle of wills recently, where he decides he's not going to do something and refuses to back down. He seems to have inherited my stubbornness, which my parents would claim is ironic justice on me (sins of the father and all that), but I was hoping that our "boys night out" to see the WWE wrestling last night would be a bonding exercise and bring us closer together. Well we had a brilliant time, and I got to see a completely different side of him. I came away with the renewed realization that he is a really cool little dude, wonderful company and great fun to be around. It was like having a night out with your best buddy, and I hope we can build on it.

We arrived downtown early and I was shocked by the number of people already there. Who knew wrestling was so popular in Austin? We parked up a few blocks away in my parking garage, and I started building up the event by telling him things like "those wrestlers are so huge that every time they slam into the mat you can feel the whole building shake". Of course, this was a mistake as he teased me for the rest of the night. Every time one of the wrestlers got slammed, he looked at me with a sly grin and said "I didn't feel the building shake, daddy". It became our running joke for the evening.

The "people watching" was quite bizarre. There were the folks - like me - who were there with their kids. Then there were folks who I guess were there out of curiosity. And then there were the folks who were really into it.

Gavin didn't believe me when I told him there would be a lot of people who brought signs to wave, and when we started seeing them he turned to me and said (somewhat witheringly and sarcastically) "ooh look, they drew them with crayons".

There were folks there wearing wrestling t-shirts, there were folks there decked out like their favorite wrestlers. And there were grown men walking around with "championship belts" slung over their shoulders (yeah, I didn't quite get that one either).

The Gavster and I didn't have to say anything - we just exchanged looks and that was enough.

We got into the arena and found that we had wonderful seats. We were in the front row in the upper tier. The entire row consisted of just our two seats, so it was like we had our own private box with a great view.

There were vendors walking around selling their wares, and Gavin imitated their calls of "cotton candy" to perfection - he got the inflection just right, drawing out the long first syllable of "cotton". Then folks started making "wooo" noises that spread across the auditorium, which he enjoyed joining in with.

Then it all settled down and went quiet.

Of course, Gavin doesn't like quiet so he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted out "woo". A few people in our section called out in reply, so Gavin stood up, turned around, did it again and raised his arms to encourage a response. And this time he got it rolling as the entire section started whooping. And then it spread all around the building like a Mexican wave.

Gavin was delighted. He looked at me and said "daddy, watch this". Then he cupped his hands to his mouth again, yelled "cooootton candy" and raised his arms to encourage the crowd. Sure enough everyone yelled back "cooootton candy" and then that too spread around the building.

Sitting there watching Gavin work the crowd I got a sudden premonition of the future. Instead of my little 5 year old, I was looking at college-age party Gavin - much more magnetic and charismatic than I could ever hope to be. I am so proud of him - he has such a clear awareness and idea of who he is at an early age. It's going to be such a fun journey, and he is well worth any and all sacrifices we will make for him and his brother along the way.

When the show started, Gavin really got into it. He got up and danced to the music, he bounced up and down in his seat, jumped up and down, gestured and yelled at all the good bits, and spent a fair amount of time sitting on my lap with my arms around him chattering away excitedly.

The biggest draw they had was a wrestler called John Cena, who also happens to be Gavin's favorite. Every time they showed John Cena on the big screen, the whole crowd went crazy. And when he finally came out for the last match of the evening the roof just about came off. I could see why he was so popular - the guy was just a ball of energy that infused the crowd ("unbridled enthusiasm" as Seinfeld would say).

He was in a tag team match against a team that included another of Gavin's favorites - an Irish baddie called Seamus. At the end of the match (which Cena's team won) everybody started leaving. We were filing out too when suddenly there was an unexpected extra match added to the card, with John Cena fighting one of the defeated tag team bad guys one-on-one (a wrestler called "Edge", who had been involved in chicanery all night). As luck would have it we were in a great position so I lifted Gavin up and he had a superb view of the match. Of course John Cena won, so we all went home happy.

As we walked hand-in-hand back to my garage, we laughed about the evening, swapped our favorite moments and just enjoyed spending time with each other. Gavin fell asleep in the car on the way home, so I got to finish off a perfect evening by carrying him into the house and putting him to bed.

A silly evening, but such fun. That's what being a dad is all about.