Running Down a Dream

When I started this blog, I wanted to keep track of my running times in the hope that I would see some improvements each race. Much like someone trying to lose weight, I feel it's important to keep track of one's progress.

Alas, I have only written about 1 of my races. The Schmohz 5K. The run that won be some beer. Which is probably why it's the only one I've written about.

So, I'm going to do a little update on my runs to date this year.

On Saturday morning, Andy and I ran the Brian Diemer Amerikam 5K Race. Everything about the events before the race suggested it would be a bad day:

• My car died picking up the race packets on Friday night.


• That thing with the Red Wings (that I really don't want to talk about) happened on Friday night.


• I woke up to rain showers and cloudy skies

However, this race proved to be a great one. We had heard that it was a flat course and that gave the opportunity for some new PR's. Andy wanted to hit a sub 20 and I was hoping for a sub 21. We both came 19 seconds short in our endeavour, but still accomplished new PR's - Andy finished in 20:19 and I in 21:19. Here are some pics from the race website - we're easy to spot because Andy's corporate team supplied us with hideous team shirts in fashionable highlighter yellow. I shouldn't complain though, since they pay for our race entry fees.

The start:

Andy's torso:

Me (on the far left):

So, my stats for this race and all races for the year are:

Brian Diemer 5K
Clock Time 21:28
Chip Time 21:19
Overall Place 250 / 1438
Gender Place 35 / 702
Division Place 8 / 118
Total Pace 6:53/M

Fifth Third Riverbank Run 25K
Chip Time 2:06:07
Overall Place 1269 / 4600
Gender Place 248 / 1995
Division Place 60 / 378
Total Pace 8:08/M
Split Rank 1241
Split Time 1:00:04
Split Pace 7:54/M
Finish Rank 1269
Finish Pace 8:22/M

Schmohz 5K

Chip Time 21:49
Overall Place 19 / 252
Gender Place 2 / 111
Division Place 1 / 31
Total Pace 7:02/M


Irish Jig 5K

Chip Time 22:00
Overall Place 416 / 3312
Gender Place 57 / 1647
Division Place 17 / 316
Total Pace 7:06/M

Thankfully, there has been an improvement. I have decided to run the Grand Rapids Half Marathon in mid-October, and hopefully can fit in a few 5K or 10K runs in before then. I'm not sure if I'll get a sub 21 5K, but I'm still going to try.

Soulshine

A song popped up on my iPod. It made me smile, and I decided to share it with the rest of you in the hope that it would make you smile too.



Warren Haynes is one of my top 5 voices. I love bluesy, earthy voices and he's got that to boot. If you don't already have one of his CD's or a Gov't Mule CD or an Allman Brothers CD - you should probably pop over to iTunes or a music store and get one. It's perfect summertime music.



To listen to Soulshine, just pop over to this site. In the upper right hand corner you can play the song.


Hope ya like it as much as I do.

How Much is that Doggy in the Window?

The one with the pa-thetic face . . .

We did some yardwork on Sunday.

We left Toby in the house.

Toby did not want to be in the house.



Notice the lower corner of the righthand window.

Here's a close-up.



Luckily this only lasted about 10 minutes. Then he discovered that we left the trash out. So he had something else to occupy his time. Namely empty containers of cream, styrofoam from meat packaging and leftover ears of corn on the cob.

Food Tricks

That's right, Food Tricks.

And I'm not talking about how to make an ice cream cone disappear in under a minute, although my belly and I do enjoy that one.

Lifehacker has complied this interesting blog on the Top 10 Food and Drink Hacks.

It should be noted, that Number 1 is a version of Andy's favorite game - The Give Me Anything and I Will Open My Beer With It Game. I haven't seen him open a bottle of beer with a standard beer opener in ages. He uses his wedding ring often, other bottles of beer, sticks. Because, of course, he's a man, and men don't need bottle openers. They open beer with blunt objects and testosterone.

I challenged him once to use Toby to open his beer. He kind of cheated and used Toby's collar.

I'll go ahead and take suggestions on new objects to challenge him with.

Black Bean Pizza

I don't have a joke to begin this with. Actually, I do know some pizza jokes, but when I think of Pizza Humor, I think of Mike Birbiglia. I love Mike Birbiglia, and he loves pizza. So with that, check out one of his Secret Public Journal entries about Pizza Math.


Last week we went vegetarian and made a Black Bean Pizza.



It was actually super easy, and super delicious. I tweaked the recipe just a bit:

• I washed the canned black beans in water quite a bit to get the sodium off, and whilst doing this I threw some frozen corn into the colander.
• When I added the can of tomatoes I also threw in a can of diced green chiles
• I also added about a half a bag of taco seasoning to the mixture
• Cooking the pizza crust a little on it's own before hand is a must to avoid the dreaded soggy pizza crust. I think the addition of cheese before the sauted portion helps keep it firm too

We also added taco sauce to the top when we consumed the pizza, because it wasn't spicy enough on it's own. Next time I'll add diced jalepenos and see if that gives it some more oomph. Overall, this was a really good and somewhat healthy recipe. Definitely cheap since it uses a can of beans for the protein instead of meat, so I'm giving this recipe a B+.