Weekly Log: 8.5.13 - 8.11.13

Monday - Wolf Hill, Smithfield, RI - 5.6 miles

I didn't get much sleep last night after a late gig at the Spot in Providence. Ab Ripper definitely wasn't happening this morning. I didn't have much spring in my step but I decided to hit up Wolf Hill. I ran along the water for the first mile to avoid any elevation gain which helped and I started to perk up a bit. Did a big loop of my usual trails but didn't push the distance as I was feeling pretty beat by the end. No flies to speak of.

On the plus side I got my WTAC Singlet today.  Now I'm bonafide!

Tuesday - 0 miles

SICK!  Woke up at midnight with a 102 fever and chills.  Started a regimen of ibuprofen which knocked down the fever / chills but they came back worse each time the pills wore off.  Doc put me on antibiotics for possible lyme disease.  Had some blood taken so we'll know soon if it's tick borne or not. After dinner I went to bed where I shook violently for 15 minutes before finally falling asleep. Woke up 30 minutes later with a 104 fever. I felt like a turd sandwich.

Wednesday - 0 miles

Wow. After sweating profusely through the night I woke up feeling better. Way better. Fever was gone. No more chills. Antibiotics for the win!

Thursday - Ryan Park, North Kingstown, RI - 7 miles

After a seemingly complete recovery from Tuesday's sickness, I wanted to get a nice easy run in. I chose Ryan Park since the trails aren't taxing and I could run in the MT00s. It was my first run in 'em since I smashed my toe in Burlingame but I figured this was the opportune place and pace to get back into them.

It was nice running weather - cloudy and drizzly. I only saw only one deer fly and it made its last mistake by landing on my arm. Looks like the miserable little bastards might be done for the year. The miles went quickly as my thoughts drifted to my younger days playing World of Warcraft. I reflected on the many hours spent in Duskwood and Strangelethorn Vale. Ah the good ol' days, long gone but not forgotten!

Anywho, the run was a bigtime success considering two days ago I felt like utter hell.  And the shoes felt great.  I was psyched that I plowed through 7 miles in 'em with no calf/ankle soreness.  Just gotta remember to only use 'em for non-technical terrain.

Friday - North Smithfield Track - 6.2 miles

A light steady rain began falling as I parked next to the Bryant track. That didn't bother me but the train of big tough college athletes heading over there spooked me and I opted to head back to the North Smithfield high school track down the road. Much better - the place was empty. I opted to run in my New Balance 730s - I've been transitioning into them very slowly over the past year but yesterday's run in the super minimal 00s encouraged me to try to use them for more than just piddling cooldowns.

I ran 6 x 400m w/ 200m jogs and 6 x 200m w/ 100m jogs.

400s - 87 / 81 / 80 / 81 / 80 / 80
200s - 45 / 37 / 33 / 37 / 42 / 37

I think the timing on some of the 200s is suspect. It's hard to judge when exactly to start/stop them, especially when then begin on the corner. These track workouts are also so mental - I'm constantly bargaining with myself in order to get through them (Halfway done already. Only one more to go now!) I was really pleased when I got through all the 200s and very happy with how the 730s felt. I'm ready to start wearing them on some road runs and shorter road races. Fun workout in the rain.

Saturday - Carter Preserve, Charlestown, RI - 6 miles

This was an easy afternoon run at Carter. I did the all the usual trails starting with the grassland loop (I discovered a short little woodland trail on the way to the loop.) It was pretty hot out there and kept the pace easy for the length of the run. Legs felt good.

Sunday - Arcadia Management Area, Exeter, RI - 16.1 miles

For this week's long run I wanted something I hadn't done in a while - Arcadia sounded perfect. I parked at the Hudson lot around 7 AM and made my way over to the Frosty Hollow pond, following trails up to Austin Farm Rd. I didn't really have a gameplan and decided to just head down Austin Farm for a bit. I passed a Road Closed sign which gave me pause and I soon found out why - the bridge was out just before the Shelter trail, which I had planned on taking.

This screwed up my plans as I wasn't familiar with trails to the south of my position. North was private campgrounds - I took a grass covered road up through them. I figured the road hugged the western boundary of the property and maybe I could pass through undetected. Instead I came upon an old basketball court and some creepy boarded up cabins. They gave me a Friday the 13th vibe and I retreated back to Austin Farm Rd.

I was wasting time and getting nowhere so I backtracked towards Breakheart Pond and made my way up to the Breakheart Trail which I took all the way to its end. I crossed the road and jumped on the Ben Utter trail. The river was moving well and at the end the Stepstone Falls seemed more lively than the last time I was here. Another runner with a hydration pack was following the North-South trail down the other side of the Falls. I wonder how far he was coming from?

I decided to check out some new stuff so I turned onto Falls River Road. This road was dirt but featured a monster hill all the way up to Escoheag Road. I followed Escoheag for a while and meant to jump back on to Austin Farm Rd but instead I got off too early and meandered down some part pavement/part dirt road for a while before finally rejoining the Ben Utter trail. Followed it back and then took Mt. Tom Trail down to Route 165. The last two miles of the run were on fresh asphalt - not as enjoyable as the 14 previous miles but I was ready to get back to the car and this was the easiest/fastest way.

Weekly Mileage: 40.9 miles

Year to Date: 1,102.4 miles

Another 40 mile week. I'm pretty happy about that especially considering my bout of sickness. It came on the two days I normally don't run anyway so it didn't actually interrupt my schedule at all. Fun runs in lots of different shoes.

The Beer Machine: Technically Beer

Let us continue on the journey to beer independence. In my previous post, I had finally set up the fabled Beer Machine, cleaned it and added all the ingredients.

After 10 days, fermentation had ceased (as evident by the lack of bubbles appearing above the airlock.) At this point I decided to take a taste to see what we were working with - this is where the design of the BM with the spigot pays dividends. It's very easy to take samples of the brew to monitor its progress.

Beer Machine gets to hang out with the good stuff

Yup, it's beer. Not great beer by any means but it is indeed beer. Still, I wanted to leave it be for a while longer to ensure that fermentation was well and truly done. After battling to keep the temp under 75 degrees in the basement, it dawned on me to use the closet that contains our well water system. I didn't use it initially as my beer cellar is in there and I was concerned about the whole exploding thing.

Success! Temps in the closet maintaining at 73 degrees.

After a few more days, fermentation is now good and done. Ideally I would bottle at this point however I forgot to assemble the bottling component prior to starting and it cannot be attached once the Machine is full of beer. Sigh. The Beer Machine is actually designed to be stored in the fridge so that one can enjoy cold beer at their leisure directly from the tap. However it has been decreed that I cannot store this monstrosity in our fridge so I've placed it in a large cooler and have been using ice to keep it cool.

Since this is not a long term solution I was simply going to drink as much of the beer as fast as I could and then toss the rest.  After a couple sessions with the stuff I can honestly say - it's not that bad.  It is definitely beer.  Malty and not too much in the way of hops.  Not a lot of alcohol to it and easy to drink.  Overall I'm pretty impressed that I made it, even if I just dumped powder and water into a contraption.

"Huh-wha?"

I then realized that it would be silly to just dump perfectly serviceable beer so my buddy Jay lent me his bottling supplies and I went to work on Sunday to preserve the rest for later consumption.  Since I didn't have the bottling attachment I did a half-assed version of bottling from the spigot.  This adds more oxygen than is preferable but since I was going to dump this stuff anyway, I'm just going for it and treating this like an experiment.

Let's do this

I have been saving the 22oz bombers for years in the hope that I'd one day use them for brewing and now that day had arrived.  I mixed some priming sugar with water and added it to the Beer Machine prior to bottling (1oz of sugar since I estimated that about half of the half batch was already drunk.)  I gave it a mix with a sanitized spoon, being careful not to splash and expose the brew to oxygen.  Then I let it sit for 30 minutes to give the sediment time to settle at the bottom.  The C02 cartridges work well to help the beer flow from the spigot but they don't last long.  They give you three in the box and I finished the third during the 4th of 7 bottles.  The rest of the bottling process was time consuming as there was very little pressure.

There you go.  7 bombers of beer that'll go into the beer cellar to age for a couple weeks.  Hopefully they don't explode.   Afterwards I took the Beer Machine completely apart and rinsed it all out.

And now my thoughts turn to my next beer.  I've already brushed aside the idea of using another Beer Machine mixture - I want to try my hand at a real extract recipe.  Jay gave me some Chinook hops so I've already started looking for an easy IPA recipe.  Stay tuned!

Weekly Log: 7.29.13 - 8.4.13

And so July comes to and end. Can't believe it's almost over, makes me sad. But what a month - an awesome family vacation in New Hampshire to start things off, two great 10 mile races and my wife's second triathlon of the year. Farewell July, I shall remember you fondly.

Now it's time to look towards the fall races - the Surftown Half in mid-September and the NipMuck marathon in early October. I don't plan to race at all in August but rather focus on solid long trail runs. Hilly trail work will be a weekly staple and I really need to get back to some weekly speedwork. At some point in August I would really like to journey over to the NipMuck trail and tackle the last 14 miles of the marathon course as that's where the hills and pain reside.

Monday - Snake Den, Johnston, RI - 5.9 miles

Ab Ripper X (15 minutes)

I wanted to run some hills and since I haven't been there in a while I choose Snake Den - I knew the power lines would suffice. It had been so long that I was taken aback by the amount of vegetation along the trails. The connector trail was overgrown in parts but at least the water hazards were at a minimum. Deer flies were a 6 out of 10.

Tuesday - 0 miles

P90X Legs & Back (60 minutes)

Wednesday - 0 miles

P90X2 Yoga X2 (65 minutes)

I was looking forward to my second attempt at the P90X2 Yoga but I didn't have my head in the game and struggled throughout, especially on anything balance related. Glad I got through the whole thing though.

Thursday - Black Farm, Hopkinton, RI - 8 miles

I had an hour and a half to kill while Em was at dance class and planned on hitting up the Carolina Management Area. But we ended up getting to class late and due to extenuating circumstances, my gas tank was emptier than it had ever been. I've never run out of gas and was stressed about it so I ended up driving to Black Farm since it was very close.

I still had a good amount of time to run and ended up exploring more or less all the trails in the area. Some of the trails open up into fields which run fairly close to some nice houses. I wasn't sure if it was still Black Farm property but I explored them until I came upon "No Trespassing" signs. I also discovered a trail that basically ran all the way to the neighborhood near 95 - good to know. I took the railbed as far as I could before the brush got too thick. I wonder if I'd be able to explore further in the winter?

Friday - North Smithfield Track - 7 miles

Ab Ripper X (15 minutes)

I was determined to return to the track today even if meant running in the rain. Luckily the weather cleared up by the time I got to the track but there was a high school soccer team arriving as well. They seemed to stick to the field and I didn't want to chump out so I continued as planned. Muddy and Jonny's 6 x 800 sounded good to me so after a mile or so warm-up I gutted them out. I ran the first one on the fourth lane in order to give the soccer boys some space but after that I said screw it and ran on the inside lane - they were hard enough without the added distance.

Splits: 3:00 / 2:53 / 2:52 / 2:51 / 2:52 / 2:55

I cooled down on the roads in my NB 730s. Gotta remember to start using these more to get accustomed to them - they are so light and would be great for road races.

That evening my band Hip Bobsha rocked out the Ocean Mist opening for Badfish.  There was a big crowd and I think our set was well received.  Nice to play for a big audience.  Badfish put on a great show - they really do sound just like Sublime.

Hip Bobsha Setlist
Steppin'¹, The Rope Climber > Pusherman², Empire Blues, One Thing > Handshake Drugs³, Jiminy

1 Soulive cover / 2 Curtis Mayfield cover / 3 Wilco cover

Saturday - Charlestown, RI - 19.2 miles

After several Torpedos at the Ocean Mist, Amanda correctly gauged that I wouldn't be up for running early today.  Instead she suggested I run before we went to the Seafood Festival at Ninigret (Em's dance team was performing.)  I immediately hatched the idea of a point-to-point run incorporating both roads and trails.  Not quite what Amanda had in mind but she kindly put up with my crazy scheme.

I left our house around 3:40 PM and took Route 2 to the east Carter Preserve entrance.  I had already begun to feel a blister forming on my right pinky but shook it off and entered the woods.  I took the red and blue trails and found myself enjoying the run so much more now that I was off of the busy Route 2.  How people can run roads like that everyday I'll never know.  Stopped halfway to snack on my latest creation, a red lentil rice cake (write-up forthcoming.)  I finished the Preserve by doing the grassland loop clockwise (there's a segment there - I knew I wouldn't be dethrowing the speedy Chris G but figured I'd at least get my name on the board.)

Jumping on to King's Factory Road, I was still feeling good.  I had been nursing my water so as not to run out and luckily it was not too hot with plenty of shade.  I reached the Burlingame woods and took Sammy C's to VG and ran it counterclockwise to the campground.  Time was starting to become an issue but luckily it was mostly road the rest of the way and I was able to make good time over to Ninigret.  Actually I felt pretty great for running 19 miles and feel like it's an indication that I'm in really good shape.  Pinky toe never actually formed a blister which was a bonus.

I got to Ninigret right after Amanda, changed (I had put clothes in her car) and dug into the festival (free admission 'cause Em was dancing - score!)  Em did great and then we hit the foodway.  Beer and doughboys were most welcome.

Sunday - 0 miles

No miles today as yesterday's run was more than enough.  My inner thighs aren't sore per se but feel like they're always on the verge of cramping.  Spent the morning bottling beer and finishing the first chapter of the great Beer Machine saga (report forthcoming.)

Amanda ran Run 4 Kerri this morning and did great - 272/729 (including a 5k PR!)  She also won an afghan in the raffle which is pretty sweet.

Another gig tonight for Hip Bobsha.  Two gigs in one week - what is this? 2001?  This time we'll be at the Spot in Providence.  Probably a lot sparser crowd than the O-Mist but I'm looking forward to it.

Weekly Mileage: 40.5 miles

Year to Date: 1,061.5 miles

Garden Shots: Revenge of the Wyrm

When the dehumidifier in the basement fills up, I empty it out back in the vegetable garden.  It's my half-assed way of watering the plants semi-regularly.  We're starting to get a decent amount of sun gold cherry tomatoes and I grabbed a few.

Sun Gold cherries and one Early Girl

But upon glancing at the plants, I noticed bare branch, completely stripped of leaves.  And then another.  And another.

Picked clean!

Too late I realized that my old foe had returned.   Not only that, they had recognized my lackadaisical gardening for what it was and gorged themselves on the lovely tomato plants in my absence.

Yes friends, it was the return of the dreaded hornworm!

There were many and they were BIG.   Now normally I don't like killing anything larger than one inch but these beasties leave me no choice.  They will ransack my plants in no time at all.  So I grabbed my killing instrument - my garden scissors.   My method has always been brutal but effective - I cut off their heads.  But the scissors were dull and their heads large - I ended up just cutting gashes in most of 'em.  Still did the trick but extra grisly.

They made a terrible clicking noise after I executed them - no doubt cursing me in their guttural language.

Even now, the morning after, I went out there and found that some of these mortal injuries were anything but.  Despite the massive gashes to their heasd, the wyrms continued to cling to life.

So beware the hornworm, dear reader.  If you see bare branches on your tomato plants, look closely - for hidden amongst the leaves lurks your doom.