18th Annual TXU Energy Turkey Trot Benefiting Sheltering Arms

10k Turkey Trot Approx 54:00. warm! 74F. Crowded. Didn't get near the start in time and stuck with all the walkers. Then at end merged wiith 5K so couldn't get over the line at end. 2 mile w/u, 2 mile w/d

KW MP

6 miles. Memorial Park. 1 hr + core. Tired! Release week at work - too much work!

Brewing Beer

Batch #5. Amber ale. For a brew competition! First attempt with save yeast and doing a starter.

KW hills

5 miles. Cloverleaf. rain showers. 1.5 w/u. 8 hill reps - approx 15 min. 4:00 mr. 1 mile hard. Tough workout. w/d + core

Brewing @ Eric's

For December's brew club meeting, Iain and I have decided to have a brew-off competition. We're going to brew an american amber called "Jamil's Evil Twin", which is one of Jamil Zainasheff's famous recipes. Iain will brew an extract version and I will brew it all-grain, and they'll both be ready to drink just in time for the meeting. Although it's the same recipe, I suspect they will turn out significantly different based on differences in process and other factors.


Iain is doubtful that the extra two hours that it takes for me to do my all-grain process is really worth it, and this is a good chance to see if it really is.


So make sure to down a few good amber ales before the next meeting to get ready to serve as a judge at this blind tasting. The BJCP Amber Ale Style Guide is as follows:


10B. American Amber Ale

Aroma: Low to moderate hop aroma from dry hopping or late kettle additions of American hop varieties. A citrusy hop character is common, but not required. Moderately low to moderately high maltiness balances and sometimes masks the hop presentation, and usually shows a moderate caramel character. Esters vary from moderate to none. No diacetyl.

Appearance: Amber to coppery brown in color. Moderately large off-white head with good retention. Generally quite clear, although dry-hopped versions may be slightly hazy.

Flavor: Moderate to high hop flavor from American hop varieties, which often but not always has a citrusy quality. Malt flavors are moderate to strong, and usually show an initial malty sweetness followed by a moderate caramel flavor (and sometimes other character malts in lesser amounts). Malt and hop bitterness are usually balanced and mutually supportive. Fruity esters can be moderate to none. Caramel sweetness and hop flavor/bitterness can linger somewhat into the medium to full finish. No diacetyl.

Mouthfeel: Medium to medium-full body. Carbonation moderate to high. Overall smooth finish without astringency often associated with high hopping rates. Stronger versions may have a slight alcohol warmth.

Overall Impression: Like an American pale ale with more body, more caramel richness, and a balance more towards malt than hops (although hop rates can be significant).

Comments: Can overlap in color with American pale ales. However, American amber ales differ from American pale ales not only by being usually darker in color, but also by having more caramel flavor, more body, and usually being balanced more evenly between malt and bitterness. Should not have a strong chocolate or roast character that might suggest an American brown ale (although small amounts are OK).

-Eric

Chicago!

7 miles. Early morning run. Never fun - but worth checking out. Some off cycle path running on hike trails saw some deer. A few navigation issues despite having a map! Working all day with late night flight back.

Fly to Chicago

Morning flight to Chicago for work. Greek dinner.

Beer tasting

Eric’s and my last brews were different APA recipes.

APA tasting at Iain’s tonight – Wed Nov 10 @ 8.45pm

FVSC Brew Club

This Saturday NOV6 we will be brewing @ 3 pm at the club!!



WE are going to be sampling out latest batch, which was a modified Belgium triple ! Come join us, this is our 5th batch thus far. This week we are going to create a Christmas Beer(“holiday beer” for those of you who are hung up on the use of the word Christmas during the Christmas(holiday) season)



Everyone is Welcome(bring your husband’s)!! Remember to bring 10 bucks for beer supplies and something to throw on the grill or chips and dip etc. If you don’t like beer bring your favorite beverage!



If you haven’t come before, this is a perfect time to come hang out with your neighbors and friends. PARTY!!

The Weather is going to be Terrific! 70 and sunny


RSVP nice but not necessary!!

Andy

Memorial Park

5 miles. Memorial PArk. Burnt out. Crazy slow run. Just happy to be out for an hour.

Beer tasting

Nice selection between the group. Still waiting on mine.

KW MP

6 miles. Memorial Park. Some payback for yesterday's drinking/birthday celebrations.

Birthday

Out for some beers and birthday shots. No birthday run - have to make up tomorrow.

KW hills

6 miles. Cloverleaf. 1000m reps. walk btwn. w/u, w/d + core

Halloween

The usual great fun. Small party in cul-de-sac before. Had a special stop at Andy's.

Long Run

9.5 miles. Terry Hershey Park. Evening run.

Brewing Beer

Brewing batch Number 4. Northwestern Red. Dinner party + Trainspotting.

Brewing Beer

Brewing Batch #3. Red Otter. Bizzarely ran out of beer Tuesday night. Straight into replenishment mode.

KW - speed

5 miles. Buffalo Bayou. 1.5 w/u. 3 mile progressive run round bayou. Water stop half way. Great weather continues. w/d + core

Beer tasting

@ Eric's. Disaster! Had a beer with dinner - best pour ever and then tried to pour some to take to beer tasting and there was none! Who knew could go through a keg that fast? Ouch. Have to get into double batch brew mode.

Practice for the Tour - Race 4.

5.5 miles. White Oak Bayou. Race 4. Practice for the Tour. 3.3 mile cross country race. 29:40. Did usual and tryed to pace well and keep going. Tough on hills! Managed a sprint at end - bring on the power. w/u + w/d.

KW hills

5.5 miles. Cloverleaf. 1.5 w/u. 30 minutes of 2 hills. w/u, w/d + core. Great weather and not holding back for tomorrows race. Training through.

KW - speed

6 miles. under Waugh bridge. 2.0 w/u, 6 x 0.5 reps. 35 mins Progressive. 1:00 walk btwn. w/d + core.

Practice for the Tour - Race 3

5 miles. Buffalo Bayou. Practice for the Tour - Race 3 of 4. 32:46 3.87 miles. 2 loops. Small warm-up. Felt OK after yesterday's Kenyan Way training session. Kept it going. Weather not too hot/humid.

KW hills

5 miles. Spotts Park. Hill session. 2.0 w/u. 20 x 0.1 hill reps. Av 1:05. 1 m w/d.

San Antonio

6 miles. San Antonio. Could have found a better route. Private railway lines stiffled the options. Oh well.

KW - speed

6 miles. Spotts Park. 2 mile w/u. Fartlek @ Spotts Park. In the bowl of Spottts Park on a scenic Fartlek course as the sun sets. Tough getting going after yesterday's race. But last few reps OK. w/d + core

Practice for the Tour - Race 2

5 miles. Memorial Park. 2.6 miles trail race. Figure 8 loop on faster Memorial Park trails. Working later and missed usual warm-up. Also first run of week with Columbus Day vacation.

Columbus Day

Day off. And some beer tasting at Andy's. Great selection between the group!

First brew success

First taste of batch #2. Re: iain's second batch: IPA

Success! But only after some panic from my first tasting. I purged the first pint before I placed keg in refrigerator. It looked so nasty I didn't attempt to taste it - even after second draw to be sure. It also came out under a lot of pressure unlike my last batch. So 24 hours later I tasted the first pint and it was nasty! I thought I had lost the whole batch. When Eric stopped by it turned out to be OK. I didn't know I had to purge the first pint after it cooled down. The third pint onwards it is perfectly clear and excellent. I'll put it any taste competition!

Anyway - it is an amazingly smooth and subtle hopped tasting brew. Much more of a Scottish style than I expected! If you prefer bitter beers you'll be disappointed or prepare to be converted. Stop by for a sample!

Memorial Park

6.5 miles. Memorial Park.

KW - speed

7 miles. Buffalo Bayou. 14 x 0.17 mile Reps. 50s rest.

Florida Day Trip

Quick business trip - missed first Practice for the Tour race.

Kenyan Way - Hills

5.5 miles. Cloverleaf. 1.5 mile warm-up then 3x4 hill reps on all 4 parts of cloverleaf short w/d + core.

FVSC Brew Club

This Saturday OCT 2 we will be brewing @ 3 pm at the club!!

WE are going to be sampling out latest batch, which was a brown ale! Come join us, this is our 4th batch thus far. This week we are going to create a Belgium Triple (very tasty)(Lian’s B-day is upon us and this is his request) !

Everyone is Welcome(bring your husband’s)!! Remember to bring 10 bucks for beer supplies and something to throw on the grill or chips and dip etc. If you don’t like beer bring your favorite beverage!

If you haven’t come before, this is a perfect time to come hang out with your neighbors and friends. PARTY!!

The Weather is going to be Terrific!
RSVP nice but not necessary!!

Andy

KW Hills - jet lag edition

6 miles. 2 mile w/u. At Cloverleaf which is getting quite beat up. 4 x 1000m. Approx 2 min rest walking back to start. (Garmin didn't get first lap). Also just flown in from London. Felt OK to run after sleeping most of way back in first class on new lie flat beds. Session somewhat moderate after racing at weekend. Laps were consistent in time but harder effort each time!

London Day 4. Hyde Park with Neil

5 miles. Hyde Park Sunday Run. Raining again. Hills in the park tough after yesterday's race. Good to be out since no after race warm down. Great after party yesterday so catching up on sleep all day.

London Day 3 - Race Day!

W.A.R.R. 10K. Great sunny weather. Short warm-up and started the race steady. First race in forever and after comeback from 2 months off. Had been training normally during week and made some effort to adjust for jet lag. Able to start increasing pace and passing people. Looking for Continental people to try and find position in team and encourage them. Kept breathing under control. Finally realized able to survive the distance fine - so concentrated on going as fast as possible and started the sprint to finish as early as possible - about 1/2 mile out.

London Day 2. Hyde Park Run

5 miles. Raining!

London - Day 1.

Recovering from jet lag! Fish and chips for lunch- a few beers and 2 hour nap.

Travel Day

Missed KW with travel day to London.

KW - HS

5.5 miles. Cloverleaf. Tough session. 1.5 w/u with Dave. 1 medium pace mile. 6 hill reps - 1 hard pace mile. w/d. 10 mins Core workout. Felt it the next day!

MP Trails

6.5 miles. Classic MP route. Rounding out the week's training. The pace on this alot better than the struggle to finish on recent outings.

KW SS

5 miles. A little different start point. Found some cones in the usual place at Waugh Bridge - but no people. Finally some others came running round and I found my way just in time for the group start. Basically some of usual loops - but hard effort along the flat top part and jog back on the beat up path by bayou. Good session.

Beer making day.

2nd home brew attempt. Took 3.5 hours in evening. This one is IPA.

Kenyan Way Hills

5 miles. Cloverleaf. Mellow run. Still sick from weekend. Managed to recover at work and decent lunch and a nap! Jody is back! Did 2 loops with him to catch up a bit.

Kenyan Way Speed Session

5 miles. Cloverleaf. 1 mile w/u. 2 man relays. Hustle to get to start point from sprint finish. Av 51 seconds. 7 one way (started 2nd), 8 another (started first) Run with Chris. Fun session.

Guatemala Morning Run

4 miles. Hill run! Up early after a long day and nights conversation with the gang at the hostel that couldn't do the volcano climbs as well because of the landslides from tropical storm in pacific. Then time for breakfast and transfer back to airport and then home.

Antigua, Guatemala

Recovering from yesterdays run!

Antigua, Guatemala Hill Run

11 miles. 2,600'. Plan to climb volcanoes scratched because of the tropical storm in pacific causing landslides and trail head access roads somewhat impassable and dangerous. Apparently been a bad year for weather and many trip cancellations. Instead a run in the surrounding hills. Route looks best on the Topo map. Kudos to John for making sure we hit a ridge plateau before the turn around. Meeting the locals at a Tienda. Not crazy hot - clouded over and some rain.

Antigua, Guatemala arrival

Finally arrive via San Salvador as GUA closed the night before due to weather. Plan was to climb volcanoes over Labor Day weekend trip. However weather changed that plan! Happened to take a GPS of detour here.

Kenyan Way Progressive Run

4 miles. Around the bayou. I don't need to mention it was hot and humid do I?

Memorial Park

6 miles. Memorial Park Trails and loop.

Memorial Park Trails

3 mile quickie on trails.

Kenyan Way - Hills

4.5 miles. At cloverleaf. Start of marathon training season. Thunderstorm cooled things down.

Mountainbiking - THP

Terry Hershey Park bike trails.

Memorial Park Trails

4 miles. Trial run.

Mountain biking - THP

Mountain biking THP Trails.

Working it!

6 miles. Memorial Park. OK - kinda slow. But second day of heat advisory even though 94F in shade but feels like 107F. Wiped out last 2 miles. Cramped at end of trails. Taking on water. Back in the game!

32 minute quickie

3 miles. Sun out. Memorial Park Trails. The power line swath has had the trees trimmed and vegatation mowed. Wide open to the bayou.

Arkansas

6 miles. Up in Arkansas. Flew into Little Rock night before and camped out. Nice morning run in national forest before picking up daughter from camp.

Still recovering

A lot of couch time. Also I'm not able to fly with a bubble in my eye. So weekend trip to Boston is canceled along with vacation plans for next week.

Also no beers since the surgery. See how long this lasts!

Bandage off

Check-up went fine this afternoon. Bandage is off and my depth of field vision is back after being sorely missed. Doing OK staying on my left side as much as possible. So I'm off work for a bit. And it was great yesterday that last minute folks could drive me and look after my kid in an emergency. Everyone is more freaked about the eye surgery than I am. Understandable. I got use to a lot of the issues on first surgery. Then I had no option - needed to do it to have sight saved. I was meant to be in Spain on vacation this week. Between uncertainty over my job remaining in Houston, a friend's devastating car accident and this surgery - I've no idea what I would have to deal with all this from Spain. During Hurricane Ike I was in France - and that was just one thing!

Emergency surgery

Yep - eye surgery #2. 7 months after the first one. Over weekend noticed a dark shadow creeping across my right eye from left. Realized it wasn't my nose. So got an appointment first thing Monday and a referral for 2pm to confirm needed a different procedure that this time involved anaesthesia. In St Josephs by 5pm and freaked out at them putting in a IV. They wheeled me into an OR and a funky procedure I got to see most of, and luckily feel nothing until the end when they got me on some of the fun pain killers. Then the interesting part of staying in a certain position as much as possible until the eye is fully healing - about 7 days initially and then rest for another week. The procedure was cryotherapy (freezing), to seal the retina to the back wall of the eye again and pneumatic retinopexy which describes the injection of a gas bubble into the vitreous space inside the eye enabling the gas bubble to push the retinal tear back against the wall of the eye and close the tear.

So spending the week minimising activity and seeing a bubble in my eye. So now it is time to let the eye heal - and heal well - so I can get back to normal.

Bike ride

14 mile bike ride - Terry Hershey park. Today was cooler (back to normal for May)

UK Election / Swimming

Was up late Thursday watching live returns for UK hung Parliament.

Hot spell - so pool warm enough now.

St. George Marathon - Oct 2nd

I now have a summer training goal. After many recomendations to do this I entered the lottery and got in:

CONGRATULATIONS!!!
We would like to personally congratulate you on being selected for the 2010 St George Marathon. This year you were 1 of the 7400 lucky runners to be chosen out of a record-breaking 11,000 registrants. We will be hosting runners from 50 states and 17 countries. We would like to thank you for your interest in our event and we look forward to seeing each of you cross the finish line in October!
There are a couple things we need to make you aware of at this time:
• Our Runner’s Guide can be found at http://www.stgeorgemarathon.com/race/runguide.php. This will give you all the information you will need to know for race weekend and should answer most questions you may have

Sleeping

Catch up on sleep.... Still stressed!

Memorial Park

6 miles. Sloowwww. Memorial Park. Late night/stress/up early from work news.

New Bike!

12 miles: An antedote to merger madness. Finally upgraded bike.

Adult pool party!

A fundraiser.

David Sedaris

Listening to this author - very funny. A little too unfiltered - which is OK in small doses.

Bike ride - THT

15 mile bike ride on THT. Start of the trail is closed for construction for a month at the trail head. Only in America do they just close it down and leave you SOL. No detour signs. Not closed half the path for construction and half for access. Of course nothing happening on closed section. I was able to figure out own detour on way back. Great weather. A rare late cool spring day.

Memorial Park Trails

6.5 miles on Memorial Park trails. Nice to be back.

Pool Party

Neighborhood pool now open for summer. Another sunny day.

Block Party

Most neighborhood construction - road and home - is finished. Time to have a block party in our cul-de-sac. Fantastic weather!

Also a brand new 10K race went through sub division. Looking to do that next year.

Memorial Park

3.5 miles. usual route. Cool weather. Time to get back into running.

Sick Day

Water must have been too cold on vacation. Out sick through Friday. Depressed immune system? Hardly drive home from work Monday.

Easter Vacation

Beach Trip. Photos to follow.

Houston Marathon 2010

26.4 miles, 3:59:50. Houston Marathon. Now completed 5 outings in a row. This one had fantastically perfect weather. Also no drama this year. No cramping at mile 25 and slow down at mile 20. This year bypassed the convention center and bag drop and instead carried car clicker and didn't worry about cooling down too much before hobbling back to car. Still able to get good parking by arriving at 6:15am. Got last bathroom visit in at home instead of dealing with the lines at convention center. Going straight to start line saved alot of early morning physical and mental energy. Nice 42F and little wind. Planned on 9 minute mile pace after last (and only) long run in training. Pace was OK and made sure got plenty of Gatorade despite cool weather. Also did Gel Shots at 50 minute intervals 1:45:00, 2:35:00 and 3:25:00 which felt perfect amount. (previous years had been 1 or 2). And for extra insurance from cramping some electrolyte tablets in hours 2 and 3. Only minor cramp twinges in right calf muscle on fast down hills towards end. Nothing like the major whole leg cramping of last year. Pace slowed down at end - but not catastrophically. Calculated I had an hour to do last 6 miles to be under 4 hours - so always had a great goal in sight at the end.



Location Time Pace/mile
10km 0:55:07 8 :52
Half 1:56:09 8:51
30km 2:47:31 8:59
Finish 3:59:50 9:08