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!

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

Valentine's Day

Chocolate covered strawberries anyone?

Travel Day to Midas from Reno

CityCentre Liftime Athletic

So I finally joined a gym. Mainly for pool workouts and recovery. Probably work on some of the weights for strength training and basic cardio can't get from running like StairMaster. Yoga and core classes may be an option too. Finally they built a decent gym in the neighborhood. Yeah!

Virgin Garmin 405 run

About 4pm got the UPS Quantum delivery notification e-mail that Garmin was sitting by front door. Finished up at work and tried to beat the rush hour traffic. Luckily relatively light now school is out. A friend had joked earlier that wouldn't be able to use it right away as need batteries. Well - found out it uses lithium's that are shipped uncharged. So first order of business was to plug it in. Meanwhile spent some time familiarizing myself with quick start guide, signing into Garmin website and downloading sync software. At 28% charge did a quick test and was ready for a training run. Chose classic short run from home which I'd measured on Google maps was 3.8 miles to turnaround. Came in at 3.5. Route is here

Of course it was 90F with little shade and breeze. Spent a lot of time during run checking distance, pace and HR. So finally - the "non-brick" GPS has arrived! What gets measured gets done. Got the light green version since only one available, and due to size of receiver in band - a bit more camouflaged.

Welcome

So here it is. I've finally made a commitment to blog about the important public aspects of my life: Running, Traveling and Living. Running in all forms has been the only constant in my life. The foundation of almost everything experienced in my life. Traveling has been the framework of everything I have done, and will do. Living (well) is the final result of me as a person. Running is tangible. Living less so - but parallels what is. I naturally lived well when younger: Ran faster, underweight and minimal stress. After 19 years of similar office jobs, it's tough to live well, even with accounting for being older. Now I run slow, am overweight and stressed often.

I believe in the premise that a life of activity is critical to high quality of living in the later years. The modern world I live in simply doesn't promote that.

This blog will record my steps to make changes for the goal of living a better life.