Jambalaya <> Running

If you run...especially early in the morning....you have to be cognizant of what you eat the night before. Several times I've had too many beers and ended up burping my way around Peace Valley Park - my Sunday running destination. One of my daughter's friends had her over Saturday so Still A Wife and I decided to go out to a real restaurant which we rarely do these days. We chose Marsha Brown's in New Hope PA as I've been wanting to eat there for a while now. It's in a converted church on the main drag and it's menu is Creole/Southern. We split a bottle of wine and I had the Jambalaya - thinking it wouldn't bother me the next day if I drank a lot of water and/or milk when I got home. Wrong! I had heartburn the entire night and could still taste the spicy concoction when I woke up to run this morning. The only thing that made the run better was the serenity at the lake. While I was training for the half marathon I was getting to the lake at 6:00 AM and starting my runs just as you could see the trail to follow. The temperatures were between 60-67 and the coldest morning was like 57 when I left my car. That was only a few short weeks ago. Today, I didn't get there until 7 as daylight has been changing - and it was only 39 stinking degrees when I left the house. I still wore shorts and just a long sleeve running shirt, but I did wear thin running gloves for the entire run. It seemed weird to even think about taking them this morning, but seeing a 3 and a 9 and it's not 93 will do that to you. When I got back to the car it was still only 46 but that 7 degrees made quite a difference. The fog coming off the lake was really thick as well. It was cool when the sun hit it just right after coming up. Runners and bikers coming in the opposite direction were almost right on top of you before you could see them. You know...if you were a big chicken (not me of course), you could allow your mind to play tricks on you ...thinking something totally evil could leap out of the fog at you before you could defend yourself......like a vampire....Bigfoot....Hilary Clinton......(shudders)...

Runners Getting Bad Rap

You know what? I can appreciate all the Public Service Announcements trying to show the masses that bad people don't have to look bad (like the ice cream men). It's something that a father of a soon to be nine year old has to stress. That being said, in two recent commercials on television - women who live alone and people who recycle paper better watch out for us road runners. Check out the nice pic I dug up from the 2006 Philadelphia Half Marathon. That's Still A Dad and myself around mile five I believe. As I run in my neighborhood through the week training for the '08 Half - I wonder if people's brains go right to that commercial when they see me coming. The one commercial is for a security system. As a husband leaves his house with the wife on the porch watching him go (yeah, like that happens. That's the first sign that the commercial is full of shit) a male runner is coming down the street. She looks worried and closes the door. He kneels down to tie his shoe and survey the landscape. She sets the alarm and herds the kids upstairs. Lady, you didn't see Michael Myers outside with a knife - you saw a guy running. Anyway....dude figures his chances are good and he shoulders through the door only to be frightened off by the alarm. Sigh. In the second spot, another runner is coming down the road when a person is taking out their recycle bin. He slows down, again pauses to tie his shoe (a good indication he is a fake runner) and then quickly goes through the bin finding exactly what he was looking for. That runner going down the street holding onto a bank statement won't look out of place at all. A guy running in a hoodie? I don't even like to put a key in my mini pocket. How could one run with a folded up document? Why couldn't it be someone posing as a cable guy or a meter reader? Make people suspicious of individuals who are actually trying to better themselves. The next time I'm running the hood instead of the park and a woman spends more than two seconds eyeballing me cautiously, I'm going to quicken my pace and run straight at her with my arms flailing above my head while screaming "Blalalalalalalalalalala". Well, ok, that's a bit extreme.....maybe I'll just stare back, slow down......and bend over to tie my shoe.....

Can't Win For Losing

You know, last year Still A Dad and I ran in the Philly half marathon in September and we both trained in the early mornings leading up to it. On race day it was sunny, not a cloud in the sky and hot and humid as all get out. We did nothing but complain about the weather and blamed our times on it. This year I thought I would outsmart mother nature. I bypassed the half in September to run in the half portion of the Philadelphia Marathon. They have a full, half and 8k all on the same day. I'm currently in a hotel room praying it doesn't rain, but it doesn't look good. It's frickin' freezing outside and there is a 70% chance of rain tomorrow. It looks light on the radar, but nonetheless, light rain and high 30's is going to be pretty miserable. I was hoping for overcast and 45! Oh well. I guess a little rain never hurt anyone.

A RoadRunners Worst Nightmare

Maybe we should stick to trails and tracks?

Why People Suck

So I'm out running this morning between 6:30 and 7:30 AM and I can't believe how obnoxious people are when they know they did something wrong and are called on it. I'm running through my own neighborhood, maybe 2 miles away from my house through another development and I'm hugging the left side of the road running against traffic. I'm not seeing many cars because I'm in a development but a lot of people are starting to leave their driveways on their way to work. I'm coming up on a stop sign and I'm going to make a left. I hear an engine coming behind me and before I know it, the driver rolls right smack through the stop sign and makes a left also. I'm not even sure there was an attempt to slow down. Now don't get me wrong, I do the "rolling stop sign" every once in a while, but I slow way down and make damn sure there isn't a car, bike or human anywhere NEAR the intersection before I pull that. I know that doesn't make it right, but if I got a ticket doing it, I couldn't complain. Well, this person's window happened to be down and it pissed me off that with me right there making the same left - she decided to go through it. What if I had went straight? I'm not even sure she saw me. Anyway - I point and say simply "Stop Sign" as our heads can't be more then 7-8 feet apart. I can see at this point that she is also the same size as her car, a small Suzuki jeep. In fact, she may have weighed more than the jeep - but oh, well. She proceeds to smile, wave at me and very mockingly tells me to have a nice day. Have a nice day? It wouldn't be so nice if the bitch would have hit me! In that one split second I targeted her as the fat chick who has always been fat and hates people that have the will to exercise. There were a million things I could have said back. Heck, supposedly I'm the witty one in the office that makes everyone laugh. It would have been hilarious to point again and say "Salad Bar". It would have been hilarious to say "Run much?". It would have been really funny to say something like "I guess I'm too thin and you couldn't see me". Nope. At moments like these I have what my mother used to use as an excuse "that German blood in me" whatever that means. My sister and dad can both hear her saying it right now as they're reading this. Nope, I chose to not be witty. I chose to not make fun of her weight. Maybe she has a glaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand problem. Yeah, that's it. Anyway, I dug deep into my insult bag of tricks and flicked her off while disgustedly screaming "Yuck Fou". I run the same routes on most days. I know the car. I know the driver. I know I'll see her again. Next time, I'm gonna go 3rd grade on her and just fill my cheeks up with air when she looks over. Damn Fatty McButterpants. Hrumph. A wave and a "Sorry" would have sufficed. Some day she'll have kids (well.....) and won't want people running stop signs in our hood.