Snow!!!

Well typically enough in a year where I was prepared to concentrate on summer sports we start winter with the best conditions in years, I suppose I will have to make the best of it and ski as much as possible and even consider training for races. On the other hand we all know that it is unlikely to last until Febuary so maybe best not to get too carried away.

I am currently in Maumee, OH and am completely unable to find places to run/swim, surprisingly despite this the locals don't seem as overweight as in Kansas where they have excellent exercise oportunities. Luckily I need some downtime, I have come of the two biggest weeks of training since my 70.3 so it's time to have a few rest days, and hopefully hit up Elver Park in Madison on the journey home for some good hill training, and to get revenge on two of the worst experiences of last years ski season. Bad grooming and an ass kicking in a 10K were my experiences of Skiiing in Madison last year. Too bad as it's one of my favorite places to trail run/dryland. OK so I'm rambling now. On tap for this weekend is my first long ski of the year, I will start them early this year, and maybe my first set of intervals, likely in the same training session. Another ski with the 1/2 pint is also a must, he made me proud last week, dragging Mrs Brewski and myself out for another lap after we were ready to call it a day.\

Beer of the Blog - I'm on a kick of harassing restaurants for not carrying local beer. Today PF Changs felt my wrath. They have this great wine list but a standard genric beer list. Wine doesn't even go with chinese food for fripps sake(pun intended - is it still a pun if the word is the same but pronounced different??). Anyway the closest to a local beer I have had out here in Ohio is the Edmund Fitgerald Porter from Great Lakes Brewing. A very solid beer. Nice complex roast flavor,.... OK I admit I didn't pay to much attention to it but it's a solid beer, definitely up there with Summit great Northern as one of the best Porters out there, but I've yet to find a dark Porter I don't like.

Feeling like a Star in the Windy City

And it's not because of the hotel room which is like a bad dorm room. Well maybe it is a little bit, as luck would go said chain of 2nd rate hotels has a deal with a chain of 2nd rate health clubs which allows access to the clubs, and thier pools. Now I am no swimmer but compared to the people in this club I was a veritable Mark Spitz. no doubt I will experience the other side of that feeling when I finally make it to a masters swim group next week.

We are now in the waiting for snow stage of the winter. Luckily I have the half pint on my side I told him we only get a half xmas if it dosen't snow. When pushed further by Ms Brewski I weakened and explained that the only differrence was in 1/2 Xmas Dad is just a grumpy git. Although I am generally a crab louse at xmas time anyways. I have been having fun dryland training, and had to have a thanksgiving catski because the trails had a dusting of snow and I couldn't get out rollerskiing. I have mentioned Catskiing in a previous postm my legs still hurt a week later. As for whether I am ready for winter.... well for once I don't care, I am more concerned with next september, don't get me wrong I anticipate alot of fun and hopefully some racing but I will not stress if it does not come.

Beer of the Blog - Czechvar - Oh how the mighty have fallen, this is an imported(by AB) version of what is on my top five beer list(Budvar).This was my first time tasting it since AB picked up distribution rights. I expected being distributed by a company which stresses quality in thier own brands that it would be fresh. No such luck it was stale, skunky and had no body. I am sure when I drank this in Europe it was packaged in a brown bottle, to bad they could not use that for the US market, but I suppose then it could not be marketed against Pilsner Urquel. With the increasing costs of beer I am glad this is one less beer for me to buy.

D.N.S. and I'm fine with that

So not only did my training fail to get going for the Twin Cities Mararthon, so did my race. After having 3 beers on Friday before picking up my race packet and feeling good about life, my respirotory issue I have been having for at least 19 days now exploded. Friday night I had the most immense dreams about my legs being cut off, and every muscle in my body ached. Saturday day I felt better and at one stage I thought the odds of me running were about 40%. That night I sweat more than I have done in my life, it was like I wet the bed only to do that I would have had to peed all over my pillow also. By 3.00 AM I knew I was not running the next day. The following morning I went to express care, and they decided it was a bit more likely an infection than virus, so tossed me some antibiotics. You've got to love US healthcare, rather than diagnose they just send you off with pills. Speaking of healthcare, turns out my insurance is not so hot, so no treatment of my achilles tendons.

The marathon turned out to be brutal temperatures of close to 90 degrees and humid. I would like to have taken credit for doing the smart thing and not delaying my recovery by running, but in reality I had no choice, I would not have made it 1 mile in those conditions the way I was feeling. So now it's rest, rest, rest, with maybe swimming during the week, and rollerskiing on the weekend. But first I have to get over this infection....

Beer of the Blog: I mentioned the sickness and all, the beers which I enjoyed just prior to it were the stunningly great Scotttish ale and IPA from Great Waters. The Scottish was just plain smoooth malty goodness, A perfect cask beer. To surive as a cask beer the beers need to be balanced, and fairly rounded in flavor, try to go to big and it all becomes overpowering for the drinkers senses. It's also especially important that the beer be clean and well made, without the ice cold temperatures and carbonation there is verry little to hide your mistakes. I thoroughly enjoyed these beers. Also it helped that I was drinking them with good company, theres more over rated than drinking a good beer in bad company, and often nothing better than a bad beer in good company.

Worst Run Ever!

And so it becomes apparrent that I am not a superhero after all. My second A race of the season was to be the Twin Cities Marathon this weekend, but knee problems have prevented me from running, and now a cough/cold seems to be taking out any remaining hope I had of surprising myself. I've gone from thinking I could smash my Dad's amazing time of 3.19, to thinking I should at least be able to beat my PR of 3.36, to thinking at least it will be a good experience what with Wisconsin coming up in 11 months, to wondering if I will even start. Part of me even wants to not start, I missed my family last weekend while in LA for a restaurant awards ceremony. (as it turns out Baywatch did misrepresent the USA, still found a washed up dildo on the shore, the oddest thing I've ever found beach combing..... Welcome to LA I guess.) This weekend I just want to spend time with them.

I am signed up for some physical therapy on my Achilles Tendons in late October, all part of my plan to get my body back to being 100% healthy before training begins in earnest in Febuary. Before then I have XC ski season, but with the current string of non existant winters, and being commited to just one for race for next year, my plan is to take it as it comes and just enjoy every second I get on snow, particularly given that my work schedule is extremely hectic for the next 3 months. I really feel bad for my wife, she alone will have to take care of the half pint for this time period, when I'm home I will do my best to be very nice to her.

Beer of the Blog: Given how self pitying the above post is you would be forgiven for thinking I was currently 3 sheets to the wind writing this, but sadly no. Despite there being 2 brewpubs between my worksite and hotel room(I think we are about to start playing in the Restaurant major league). Anyway no I'm 100% sober, and discovered the sad truth of LA, It has no good beer Sam Adams or Heinekin no wonder all the celebs like their drugs. So nothing to report from that trip. One beer I have been enjoying recently is Hopalicious, from the Ale Asylum in Madison. Perhaps the perfect pale ale, nice balance of hop bitterness to flavor, light to moderate body. I've no idea the stats on this beer, but from drinking it just seems like a very enjoyable fun beer, a bit like the town of Madison itself.

Gone for a While

OK last time I blogged I was in a hotel room in Mason City in the middle of a blizzard, 6 months later I'm in a hotel room in Cedar Rapids with perfect weather out. My summer was fun, but has proved to be dissapointing as far as races go. The first 1/2 of the year was devoted to training for the Baja 70.3 at my sisters house, literally in Ensenada Mexico. I was in good shape for this, but flatted on the bike, froze on the swim, and had the run discounted due to route issues. I had run my best ever 1/2 marathon time as well. Still travelling to Mexico with My wife and the half pint was alot of fun and was far more rewarding than even a good race may have been. well OK maybe not a really good race, but combined with seeing my sister it was as good as anything above a 5 hour half.

The rest of the summer the plan was to take it easy and concentrate on the Twin Cities Marathon. I did a few shorter Triathlons which demonstrated how much I need to work on swiming better. I have now injured my knee from over training. Oops, after a summer that started with flats in every race I suppose it's only logical my knee flatted during what should be my peak training. I am taking it easy and hope to be running again soon, but it seems like my dads family best time of 3.19 will survive another challenge.

I also found ture love this year, I have attached a photo of the object of my affections, no doubt you will see why.

Let's hope for a snowy winter to make up for this summer.

Beer of the blog - Not sure what the best beer I have had since last posting so I will stick to the old theory of the best beer is the one in front of you. In my case that is Krusovice Schwarzbier. The disturbing thing about this is the ingredients: Malt, hops, Water and Artificial Sweetener???? Now my question is should that be yeast? or is it Caramel that is used for coloring,? which seems likely given the flavor actually but in which case where is the yeast? Beer is an average dark Lager, nice but nothing special, the perfect summary of my summer races really.

Beer of the blog #3 OK so not bad for being alone in a hotel room with a car full of beer, I'm only on #3. Continuing with my nostalgia trip of the original US micros I'm drinking a Bigfoot Ale from Sierra Nevada. This may have been one of the original US extreme beers at 9.6 % a.b.v. As with the Liberty ale it has gone from the extreme to mainstream. I'm not sure how this beer ages, this is a 2007 vintage and as such is very green, alot of green apple(acetaldehyde) flavor, and the hop flavor is a bit on the harsh side. Most modern US barley wines would fight this with a huge malt punch, not Bigfoot. It does have a fair hop presence as you would expect for a Sierra Nevada beer. Personally I would age this beer for a few more months were I not trapped in a hotel room in Iowa. Now that we are beginning to see some Western wildlife in the midwest(cougars, people escaping the madness that is the west coast for a better life, etc) no doubt the Bigfoot is not far behind Oh wait what's this? http://www.angelfire.com/mn2/mnbf/main.html

Beer of the Blog #2: OK it's 5.30 now and I've only made it to beer #2. So while enjoying learning about the 8 fold path of Budhism where better to drink a beer from than from the centre of trend based spiritualism San Francisco. Yes whether it's creating counter culture musicians who later become the boring mainstream (yay flowerpower), or creating a foil for the right wing nut jobs like Mr Bill O'Reilly you can always rely on folk from San Francisco to show a detachment from reality, which is the ultimate point of spirtuality in the end so I gues that makes sense.
Anyway what does that have to do with beer, well I am currently drinking an Anchor Liberty Ale. This was at one stage one of the single most hoppy beers out there. As such it became a favorite of many drinkers. Then along came Alpha King and the rest is history. In some ways this beer is like the eightfold path, it is neither the indulgent path of too many hops, nor the self deprivation of too little hops. Maybe drinking beer can be a spiritual experience.