Cinnamon

I'm into a protein shake phase again. Having injured my knee in a half marathon last fall, I've been forced to switch up my workout routine. This means going from running 99.9% of the time to more of a cross training routine. So, now I bike, swim, do a little running (mostly jogging at this point), and also some weight training to try to build strength.

I read in the recent Runner's World that many endurance athletes may not be getting enough protein, protein usually being considered something for strength training. Since I am now trying to mix in strength training with endurance workouts, I am trying to do a bit with protein supplements.

What does all that have to do with cinnamon?

Well, I've done protein shakes before, but they taste bad. So, to sweeten the deal, I have usually ended up using sugar or honey to entice my taste buds. Let's face it, if it tastes like cardboard, the protein shake phases won't last long!

But sugar is something I'd rather not do a lot of. I try to cut sugar intake b/c most of what we eat in America relies heavily on sugar/corn syrup/etc. for flavor.

Enter cinnamon.

Cinnamon is a great way to add flavor to my protein shakes or to anything else, for that matter. I love the flavor of cinnamon, so if I mix in some raisins, blueberrys, and cinnamon I find that I do not have to add sugar to the protein shakes--and it's a really flavorful experience; a tasty way to get a heathly, powerpacked snack/meal. (Blueberrys, by the way, are the recent rage of healthful "powerfoods.")

So, if you are looking to cut the sugar and still add flavor to your food, consider cinnamon. It is a tasty spice, which also has some health benefits. And, who knows, maybe cinnamon can spice up your love life:
I have perfumed my bed
with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.
Come, let's drink deep of love till morning;
let's enjoy ourselves with love!
Proverbs 7:17-18

The health of tuna fish

For those of you interested in your food choices, here is an interesting article, The Danger of Not Eating Tuna. I like to mix up canned salmon (or tuna) with relish, spices, and mayo and put it on toast for a tasty and somewhat healthy lunch choice. So, I'm always interested in reading about mercury in fish and/or the benefits of eating fish.

Here are a few excerpts from the article:

Just so we know, which fish are higher and which are lower in mercury?

Shellfish are almost all low in mercury because they don't live very long and they're small: shrimp, lobster, crab, scallops. And shellfish have medium levels of omega-3s, similar to other medium-size fish. Salmon are also good. They're high in omega-3s and low in mercury because they're also short-lived.

Light tuna is low in mercury, compared with white (albacore) or red (bluefin) tuna. On average white tuna has three times the mercury as light tuna. But on average white tuna has three times the omega-3s as light tuna — and all the evidence that we can see suggests that omega-3s have more benefit than mercury has harm.

The bottom line

The bottom line is that there's inconclusive evidence that mercury has any long-term effects in adults at the levels that are commonly consumed, and that even if there are effects, studies suggest that they are only to lessen the benefit of the fish. That's important from a public health perspective — we might be getting even more benefit from fish on a population level if we took the mercury out, and that's a very important question that should be answered. But that doesn't mean that the individual person trying to decide on a fish meal should worry about mercury.

I know I sound like I'm trying to downplay the risk but I really think we are experimenting with people's lives when we give recommendations or write stories or reports that make people eat less fish. We know from very good human studies that fish intake reduces the risk of dying from a heart attack by about a third. And heart attack is the number-one cause of death in the U.S. among both women and men. It's the number-one cause of death in almost every country in the world. And eating fish once or twice a week reduces that risk by a third. So if we're causing people not to eat fish or to choose to eat something other than fish because they're worried that the fish has some mercury in it, they're increasing their risk of dying from a heart attack for a concern that has not been established.

Dating Hot Girl

I have recently realized that I'm kind of scared to use the new ipod Nano. Even though I have had it for a few weeks, I have only run with it once. But my new ipod and I are not off to a great start. For one thing, my old arm band (that set me back thirty bucks) is not shaped for the new, 3rd generation ipods. There is an arm band that I could buy, but I'm not excited to shell out another $30 and I'm not convinced that it is a very good arm band.

My experiences with my ipod Nano's over the last year have made me think. I believe that the emotions that I have experienced in my relationship with the ipod Nanos is analogous to dating the hot girl. The hot girl (like the ipod Nano and the Nike+ running system) is very sexy. She makes you think, "Dude, I want that." And when you date the hot girl everyone thinks you're cool and assumes you've got the goods. So, heck, you naturally think you are cool as well because, after all, 100% of the people can't be wrong! Hence a boost to the self-esteem.

But there are certain disadvantages to dating the hot girl, and these disadvantages also mirror my experience with the ipod Nano. The hot girl may be sexy but she usually isn't reliable. She can get what she wants and always monopolizes the attention of other guys. As such, you are never quite sure where you stand with her. Is she going to jump ship and date a better guy with a better car or more money or better looks? Similarly, the ipod is sexy, but it just hasn't been there for me: Is it going to work on this run? Reliability is a problem.

Another problem is high maintenance. Hot girls are usually very demanding, each in their own way. Because you know she can go out and get a better guy at any time she chooses, it is imperative to cater to her whims. Similarly, the ipod requires maintenance. It is important to keep it in prime condition or it may just conk out on you at anytime.

Such has been my experiences in dating the hot girl and in owning an ipod Nano.

igotscrewed

Ok, just because everyone cares so much, I am writing to update you on the ipod situation. A few months back when I was having all that trouble with my ipod nano and the related Worst Buy Warranty, I wrote a review on Amazon.com entitled "igotscrewed"....for some reason it hasn't shown up yet.....Remember the recent rants??? My old, ridiculously unreliable ipod nano continued to malfunction at every turn, resulting in a trip to Best Buy to get the stupid thing exchanged - sorry, looks good to us: Yes, you morons! But it doesn't work when I go for a run!
Sorry, sir, you'll have to wait for the Geek Squad.
Uh, what??? Ok

....and waiting and waiting....and leaving the store.....

So, the stupid ipod finally died. With that I realized how much I was relying upon technology to make my running a satisfying venture. So, I said, "screw it" - I'm running with only a stop watch. (My runs, of course, have been slow and short due to my recovering knee from the last Half I ran.)

Having recovered the joy of the pure run, I went to Worst Buy yesterday with my dead ipod and believe it or not a righteous dude helped me at the service desk and said I could have $199 in store credit.

Yes!

So, for the $199 I was able to double the storage and I now have a nifty 8 gig 3rd generation ipod.

We will wait to see if it actually works. It looks cool. But "ipod without works is dead."

The 3rd generation ipods are now square (or very close to square), which is unlike the tall, rectangular shape of the 2nd generation ipods (my old piece of trash ipod was 2nd gen). This, of course, means that I have the privilege of purchasing a new $30 armband from Nike!

Well, that's all the Grrrrrrrrrr I have for today. Have a good weekend.

Oh, yea, there's one more thing. The last thing the guy at Worst Buy asked me as I was checking out was, "Do you want to buy the Warranty with that, sir?"

2007 Lake City Bank Half-Marathon

I am nuturing a rather sore left knee. Iced it today.

In Saturday's Half-Marathon I really hit a major wall in the last two miles. I've been training more for speed, and less for distance, and I didn't take anything to drink along the way, so by the time I got to mile 10 I had used all the gas in the tank. By mile 11 it was a matter of prayer. The last mile? I'm not quite sure how I got through that, but I do remember that my eye sight got a little funny and I started seeing sparkley things everywhere.

As is true for most local races here in Winona Lake and Warsaw there always seems to be some little quirk. Without quirks a local race would lack character. This time, for the life of me, I couldn't find any Gatorade to drink after the race. In fact, there wasn't anything at all set up to eat and drink! But the band was playing. Apparently, one of the guitarists formerly played with Ozzie or something....

I finished with a time of 1:46:29. That's something like 8:08 per mile, I think. James Kennedy topped the list with a time of 1:09, which I believe is something like 5:17 per mile - yikes! That's fast! James recently told me that he is feeling like he is in good shape. Ok. Yes. We can attest to that.

I feel a bit banged up because I ran the race hard, but it is a good pain. I only kill myself like this once or twice a year. (Because unlike other people, pain hurts me.)

Here I am pre-race. Like Superman I am ripping off my street clothes and getting ready to fly:

Bix 7

My first running of the Bix 7. It was elbow-to-elbow traffic for the first 4 (of 7) miles - very congested. At one point there was even a couple of morons who tried to pass directly through a group of racers. Yours Truly ran into one of the idiots. Plowing people over made me feel like a running back for the Fightin' Irish. (By the way, when does football season arrive??? Aaaaarrrrggghhhh!)

I was happy with my effort of 58:25. It is a hilly course, and unfortunately I started near the back, so it was a very uneven race for me. (Next year I shall be closer - this I vow!) For my age group (25-29, I believe) I finished 332 of 845, and overall I finished 2,278 out of something like eleven thousand racers.

Here is a post-race picture of my boyish figure:


Here is my back where you can see my tatoo....actually, what happened is that I placed a newspaper behind my back on the post-race drive back to the motel so as not to funktify the interior upholstery of my uncle's car. It left a temporary tat on my back with an advertisement for "Girls Night Out" at the Kansas City Royals ballpark.




Next up on the race schedule:
Crim in Flint, MI on August 25.
Lake City Half Marathon in Warsaw, IN on Sept. 15.

Not so bad, as long as you layer

Temps here in Indiana are hovering around zero degrees. Add the wind chill factor and we are talking about 20 degrees below zero. (It's so cold that school is being closed, not because of bad roads but just because it is that cold.)

For those of you, like Dawn, who live in warm, comfortable climates you may not be familiar with what the "wind chill factor" is. Wind chill is what the weather actually feels like. A thermometer might show that it is 1 degree above zero outside, but that doesn't count the bitter cold winds whipping across the flat Indiana plains. So, the wind chill factor takes into account those bitting winds.

But twenty degrees below zero need not detract one from getting out and doing some running. (Hey, Rocky worked out in the cold when he was training to fight the Russian, so why can't we?) I don't recommend going for world record distance runs, but surely a thrity minute run is possible, even when the weather is as cold as it is.

The key is layering. I have gone on a few four mile runs in the last week and it has been at some of the lowest temps and some bitter wind chill factors, but it really hasn't been too bad. First thing is to make sure that you've got some good gloves - mittens are the best because they trap heat better than gloves that have fingers. Second, make sure you've got something to cover the face (a ski mask) as well as a warm stocking cap of some sort.

On to the upper body. The key: more bulk does not mean more warmth. Nix the sweatshirt, because it doesn't keep the wind out. I wear a spandex base layer followed by a waffled thermal underwear layer. I have a thin, long sleeved shirt over top of that, and then as the outer layer I have a wind breaker. The outer layer is one of the most important. It has to keep the wind from cutting through. If you are a cheapscate you can get by pretty cheap on most of the clothing, but don't skimp on the outer layer. Get something that is well-made and designed to keep the bitter winds from getting through. Technology can help us here, so take advantage of it.

So, four layers is probably ok for most weather. If you need a bit more warmth I would recommend going with some sort of warm thermal as your third layer.

What about the lower body? Well, go with some long running tights and then maybe some sort of outer layer to keep the wind out. Similar concepts apply to the lower body as to the upper body, except you usually don't need as many layers. Personally, I just wear two pairs of tights and typically wear a longer, thicker pair of shorts. And make sure you've got some warm socks.

Last tip for cold weather runners: Don't have any exposed skin! It may be common sense, but certainly worth mentioning.

So, get out there and breath the crisp, cold air. Take your time and soak in the beautiful scenes of snow covered trees.

Thankfully, my knees haven't gotten too sore!

So, I'm running along last night a mere 3/4 of a mile into a regular old run-of-the-mill run with my ipod playing some Soundgarden or some other such music that came from the early nineties "Seattle Grunge" movement and I am perfectly content with my nice and easy pace for a nice and easy 4 miles.

But then I spot the trails.

I must admit that I could not resist the temptation to run through the trails in Winona Lake. The thing is, that it is night, so I can't see very well. And also there is snow covering the trails. So, I am subject to some kind of threatening terrain. I had a blast running through the trails in the white snow in the woods. Lots of fun. Trail running is good times.

I did take a few bad steps, however - stepped on my ankle once. However, I am happy to report that the next day I do not appear to have any major joint issues. Thankfully, my knees haven't gotten too sore!

Running Red Rock

Here is a map of Red Rock Canyon. It shows Scenic Drive, a loop of about 13 miles that circles through Red Rock Canyon. On all sides are really cool mountains and rocks.



Before I left for Vegas I saw the following page in the December edition of Runner's World:



I thought to myself that there was no way I could do a 13 mile run...I would have liked to do a 13 miler, but I just didn't think I was quite there yet. My max run was 8 miles, and I'm not sure it is recommended to make a jump from 8 miles to 13 miles.

So, we arrive in Vegas on Saturday. Early Sunday morning I go on a 7 mile run of the strip. We also walk a ton - all around the Vegas strip - on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. On Tuesday we took out 5 mile hike up Turtlehead Peak. So, needless to say I'm kind of tired. But my legs feel good and I start to wonder on Tuesday if it might not be possible for me to run Scenic Drive (13 miles) if I took it in two phases: Run half and then relax for a while and finish the next half. But then as I begin to consider the possibility I think to myself that maybe I should just run as far as I can go. If I can get 13 then great, but if not then I will just relax and take a break at some point.

So, on Wednesday morning I start out at about 1pm. By the time I start I am determined to get through all 13 miles. The first 5 miles are almost entirely uphill and it is all against wind! I take my time and try not to expend too much energy, but it is very slow moving, and it gets a bit discouraging when my ipod tells me after 5 miles that I am at a 15 minute per mile pace!

The 5 mile point is the highest part of the run, and I look out over the canyon and it is very beautiful. In addition to the scenery I am also inspired by the fact that the rest of the run will be downhill. Add to that the Switchfoot song "I dare you to move" and I am off and running. I begin to stride out and really cover some ground quickly - it is exhilarating, to say the least. And at this point I begin to enjoy the majesty of the mountains around me.

When I hit the 9 mile marker my total pace (for the first 9 miles) is 9 minutes per mile! That means that I went from 15 minutes per mile at the 5 mile mark to 9 minutes per mile in a span of only four miles. I must of been bookin' it! And I am having a lot of fun.

Once I hit the 10 or 11 mile marker then it starts to become a bit more difficult and I can start to feel it in my legs. But I'm still doing well and I finish 13.1 miles (half marathon distance) just under 9 minutes per mile.

Here I am just after the run


Here is the sky on my run


Here are the shoes that carried me through. (I think that it's about time to retire them.)