Running, biking, scotch

Over the weekend, my running buddy came home for a few days.

She and I went and did a couple of workouts. First was a 2+ mile run with some good sized hills... We did mix in some walking in addition to the 2 miles, so it was a pretty lengthy excursion. The knee felt pretty OK, but I wouldn't want to do too much more than that.

The next day, we went for a nice little bike ride, a little over 5 miles. Thankfully, I didn't have any incidents and come home with any broken bones, unlike the last time she and I rode together. This was the first time I pulled out my bike after I got it tuned up, and I was really pleased with how well it rode. The tune-up was definitely worth the money. (Plus, I have brakes now!)

I must say, I really missed working out with her. While I do like the solitude when working out, I really do enjoy her company, and the time really flies by. So, if I had to choose, I'd certainly choose having her around for the workouts. Plus, it's really good having someone that will drag your butt outside and make sure you work out on those days where you really just want to phone it in.


And now... Today's alcohol Tuesday entry is....



Glenmorange's 12 year 'Port Wood Finish' scotch. It's a single malt scotch that during its final years of maturation, is put into port containers for aging. This allows it to pick up some of the characteristics and flavors of a port, while retaining its scotch-ness. (What else would you call scotch-ness?)

In an effort for full disclosure, this is the scotch that got me into scotch drinking. It was a Christmas party with a very kind and generous host, a drinking buddy, and a bottle of this. (Unfortunately, the host only had about a single glass, and there was confusion the next day on how my buddy and I got home. Props to Mrs. Raul here for not killing me, as it was really a party for her and her co-workers)

Anyway..... The scotch has a somewhat rose tint to its golden color. The smell is slightly fruit-like, in the vein of cherries. A first sip is pretty dry. As you taste it, you start noticing more and more flavor. There's a very faint underlying smoke taste, but there is also the port taste. In some ways the port taste reminds me of Courvoisier cognac. (I'm no cognac expert, though. Nor a scotch expert for that matter)

The scotch itself is... pricey. So, it's definitely designed for sipping, and for special occasions. One could argue that it's not for a newbie scotch drinker, due to its price and complexity. However, I'll argue the opposite, saying it's a good way to get into scotch.. a 'gateway scotch', if you will. It worked for me.. (Of course, there are very few drinks I'll turn away from)

Hmm.. After doing a bit of research this morning, it appears that this scotch is discontinued, and has been replaced by the 'Quinta Ruban' variety (of which, people seem to prefer the Port Wood Finish version). Oh, this is disappointing. Plus, I robbed you all of a good review, because this is discontinued.. I guess I'd rush out and get a bottle if you are at all interested. lol. I'll have to do something else later on this week to make up for this.

Alright everyone, keep on rockin!

Various Miscellany

I worked out Wednesday, but it was a struggle. I did 2 miles on the treadmill and was just dying.. My legs felt awful and abused. I went and did the bike for 20 minutes, and wound up with 5.74 miles done.

Afterward, I hopped on the treadmill and did another mile, and called it a day. I wanted to do 5, but this seemed like a good compromise.

I also opted to take Thursday off, just to rest. Friday is a rest day by default, as tonight is the last night of dice baseball. The world series, baby! We'll see how it goes. Should be fun, at least.

I tried out a couple of new (to me) gins last night. Found these little bottle at the liquor store, and decided to give them a go.

First up is Tanqueray Rangpur. Tanqueray makes a very good gin to start, and the No. 10 is in my top 3 of gins. I decided to give the Rangpur a go, just for something different. It claims to have some extra citrus type things mixed in the flavor, so I said, "hey, why not?".



You'll note in the picture that I didn't put any limes in the gin. If it had extra citrus, I wanted to be able to taste it purely. Taking a sip, you definitely could taste extra things. It was as if lime juice had been mixed into the gin. The usual taste of juniper was heavily masked. Even the scent of it was very faint.

That being said, it was still very smooth. There was no need to add any limes to the gin & tonic, though.

I'd say it was good, but more of a gin for non gin drinkers. The usual bouquet that I look for was highly masked. I wouldn't turn it down, but I wouldn't hunt for it, either.


The next gin I tried was New Amsterdam.



I also started this one off without limes, just to get a taste for it. Looking at their website, it states "so smooth you can drink it straight."

Uhm, no.

Not so much.

It had more of a classic gin scent to it, but it had a fair amount of bite and it felt like a high amount of alcohol (it doesn't.. just a standard 40% ABV).

I added some limes to cut the bite, and it was better.

That being said, no, I wouldn't buy this one again. But, it certainly wasn't the worst I ever had.


I've tried a fair number of gins, and the ones I really like are:

• Hendrick's (previously discussed here)
  
• Tanqueray No. 10
  
• Bombay Sapphire
  

I also don't mind Beefeater, as it's a decent gin for a budget price. The newfangled Beefeater "Wet", however.. that stuff is absolutely disgusting. Tastes like paint thinner. Expensive paint thinner, too. That stuff was by far the worst tasting gin I've ever had. Mr. Boston tasted like sweet nectar compared to this stuff.

Alright, that's enough gin for now.

I really should get to work.. keep on rockin' everyone. Have a good weekend.

1 mile

Yep.. Did one mile on the treadmill last night.

Of course, that was after doing 10.8 miles on the bike. In half an hour.

Now, I don't kid myself to think that I was really going ~21 mph for 30 minutes yesterday. I figure the bike calculations are a bit off.. But, I was going like hell.

Just wanted to work a different set of muscles from the usual running set. Plus, I had an hour until the pool opened for lap/adult swim.. so, on the bike I went!

And, just for giggles, I did a mile at 6.25mph on the treadmill, to see what that would feel like. Let me tell you, the first third of a mile, it really didn't feel good at all.



Later that night, I went and picked up these.. a pair of swim goggles. I'm hoping to try them out tonight.

Some weekend coverage

Yeah, it's Wednesday, and I'm finally getting around to discussing some of the stuff that went on this weekend.

First up was dice baseball.



I had the pleasure of hosting the guys, so I got the necessary supplies. A pic of the beverages is included for your viewing pleasure.. (Yes, I took the time to line them all up, 6 deep, by brand and style). Plus, a whopper of a good sheet pizza was had by all.

The results.. well, I went 3-2 this week, putting me one game under .500. Not terrible, especially for this being my first season.

My wife was really pleased about the hosting experience, surprisingly enough. She said that the guys didn't leave a mess at all. That they were cleaner than the ones that come over when she has PartyLite parties. Hmmmm.


On Saturday, we went for a bike ride. It was my first ride since I broke my elbow while riding.

I decided to take the toe clips off, too. I'm just not ready for them.

And, well, since I haven't been riding, it was a struggle on the hills. Big struggle. Some I won, some I lost. But, at least I was out there. And so was my wife. Props to her for taking the hilly route back home. All in all, it was a little under 6 miles done.

Sunday, I went for a run.. first run since I figured out what the hell was wrong with my feet. The rest did some good, as my feet can be walked on now. I took it easy and did a little under 3 miles. It wasn't stellar, but it was some miles at least.

More topics coming up...

A brief lesson in physics

So last night, my running buddy sent me a text and proposed going biking instead of running. I was totally all over that, and she met up with me, and off we went.

I wasn't sure how she'd do, as she hasn't rode a bike in quite some time, and was borrowing my wife's. (She did just fine, for the record)

I was a bit rusty getting into those toe clips, as I've been pretty lax on biking lately. Finally got hooked in after a bit.

We did a little tooling around the local neighborhood, and then proceeded to hit the main drag. No worries.

We took a turn into another neighborhood and rode around there for a bit, and decided to head back.

On the way back, there was a small hill to go up. I led the way up the hill. Upon reaching the top, I stopped to make sure she was alright. I turned my head and saw that she was.

Physics lesson: The interesting thing about a bicycle is that unless you're balanced just right, you generally need to be moving in order to stay upright.

So, you'll recall that I had stopped. After swinging my head around, I realized that the bike was tipping. "Oh, no problem. Let me just put my foot down."

Yeah. Well, unfortunately, I was successful in getting my feet in those toe clips.

My foot stayed securely in place in the toe clip, and down I went.

Of course, being the resourceful guy I was, I said to myself "Self, let's put our arm out to stop the fall!"

Yep. Wrist planted in the ground, I crumpled up on it, and down I was.


And yes, this happened out in the public street with someone watching (besides my running buddy).

So, I was with a dinged up palm, a hurting wrist, a hurting elbow, a hurting shoulder, and a case of severely wounded pride.

The guy standing in front of his house was nice enough to ask if I was ok. Of course, after I assured him that I was, he did ask if I had raced in the local bike race this past weekend. Har har.


Managed to bike on home, yielding a result of about 4.5 miles. I was hoping for 5, but, things happen.

My shoulder started to feel better later in the night, but my elbow was killing me still. I did follow the 'RICE' principle. Well, at least 'RI'.

Today, after taking an informal poll here at work, I decided to go to the doctor, who promptly sent me for x-rays.

I await the results. Stay tuned!

13 Seconds

Well, it was a pretty light workout night for me last night. My body thanks me.


My wife and I went to a somewhat local park and biked around for about 3.36 miles. (Wouldn't you know it, I forgot my Garmin! Grr.. had to map it with MapMyRun). Afterwards we sat down, ate a couple of subs, and polished off a bottle of wine. We did go biking for another 1.04 miles afterwards, yielding a total of 4.4 miles.

What wine you may ask? I'm glad you asked that! We had a bottle Kat Knapp White. It's a very sweet wine, and tastes a lot like some of the Niagara wines in the region. It's not ice-wine-sweet, but certainly sweet. Has a nice apple juice color to it. We picked up the bottle a few years back, and decided to bust into it last night. Good decision.


So.. 13 seconds, you ask? What's the point of the title? Well, I was trying to think of something to write about that might be somewhat interesting.. Yesterday, I decided to go give blood.

Giving blood is something I started doing last year. Truthfully, I wish I had started 10-12 years ago. I don't know why I didn't do it. But, I am doing it now, and that's what's important. Perhaps, now that I'm older and wiser, I see the value of it.

Back to the story.. I took my manager and a co-worker down with me. 6 months ago, my manager had hinted she like to 'race' giving blood... so, I kept that nugget in the back of my mind. We got all checked in, hooked up, and off we went...

I turned in a respectable 5 minutes even for shedding my pint. Wouldn't you know it, she turned in a 4:47. She beat me by 13 seconds! Sigh. (My co-worker put in 9 minutes and change.. we didn't tell him it was a race)


I watched a bit of the All-Star game last night.. I decided to turn it off after 9 innings.. Good thing, as it went past one in the morning. Glad to see the A.L. came out on top again. :)

Tuesday

Well, Tuesday was an alright day.. I had to leave work early, so that wasn't all bad.

I went home, and did my pushups.. Week 2, Day 1 was a success.. I eeked out the minimum. Leaves me a bit worried for what the rest of the week will hold.

I also went for a bike ride.. It was 6.28 miles, if I remember right. Some good hills and such were tackled.


At work, I put Firefox 3 on.. I'm going to play with having different browser profiles. That way, I can keep a browser all set up for blog-type things, a browser for personal things, a browser for work things..

One of my favorite extensions Foxylicious hasn't yet been updated for Firefox 3. That's sad. It's the main reason I haven't fully switched to FF3 yet.


Last night, I also put some primer on the walls & ceiling of our extra bathroom. It's the last time that bathroom is the putrid pinky-peachy color it was. I tolerated it for 7 years, but it is no more. whoo hoo. We have a nice shade of green we're going to throw on the walls (that's the ubiquitous 'we' that will be putting paint on the walls)

Last few days

The past week was a very good week for workouts.. I wound up working out 6 of the 7 days, a mix of running and biking.

On Sunday, I finished day 3, week 1, of the 100 pushup challenge. The week was a success. I just squeaked out the minimum on the last set, putting my total that day at 63.

We also went back to the park on Sunday for another bike ride.. We did about 4.6 miles, so we did over 10 for the two days. Nice and flat, good way to ease into biking for us.

On Monday, it was back to work. I love 3 day weekends (not as much as 4 day weekends, of course). Alas, it had come to an end. After the day was over, I was wishing it was Friday, because it was just terrible. Argh.

I debated stopping at the liquor store on the way home, but I decided I'd go for a long run when I got home. I strapped on the CamelBak and iPod and out I went.. I went into an area I never run in.. It's a bit seedy, but it was light out, and no one bothered me. My stretch goal was 8 miles, I wound up doing 7, which was the minimum I wanted to do. It was 82 and humid out. Bleh. After about 5.5 miles, my CamelBak was mostly warm, I hadn't put enough ice in it. I decided to mix in a stretch and brief walk. (The end total was 7 miles of running, though).

My ITBS seemed to be relatively OK.. I'd give it an 8.5 out of 10. After I got home from work, I popped 3 advil (normally I would take 0). I know you're not supposed to run after taking advil and such, but... oh well. So, maybe that masked some of my ITBS issues.. It seems OK this morning, though.. I'll have to go easy this week, probably.

My long route was pretty much all flat. I had debated doing some hills in the midst of the long run, but opted not to, just to keep it a bit less taxing on me. I may do a hill workout Wedesday.. Or, I might do a speed workout. I'm not sure yet. I haven't checked how fast I can run a mile in a year or so.. I thought that may be interesting. (Or disappointing)

I put in splits at about 10 minute miles for the long route. It's probably a bit fast for my long slow distances, for me, but I have a very hard time slowing it down any more than that.

After running, I did feel immensely better, stress-wise. Only 4 more work days this week. *sigh*

Well, that's all for now.. tonight is day 1 of week 2 for the pushups.. Shoulders are a bit sore from carrying around the CamelBak last night, so I hope that doesn't hinder my progress. :)

blogging from my hammock

well, i took the 4th off. no running or biking. I did do my pushups... final max was 12, if I remember right. Only a couple over.. still, not too bad. I did go for a walk.. probably 1.5 or 2 miles

We went for a bike ride today. Did 6 miles in a nearby park. The weather was beautiful today.

We're having my inlaws over in a few minutes to eat the leftovers from our 4th of july get-together.

Gettin' ripped

I was reading a recent post on a blog I read, and became intrigued by the '100 pushup challenge'.


I'm going to do it. Why not? It's something that has always intrigued me.. I've never been really physically fit, but I've been working on it this past year.

Of course, I'm not content to do what everyone else is doing. So, I'm mixing it up a bit. I've been doing pushups on and off for a while now. For Christmas, my wife got me the 'perfect pushup' exercise thingys. (I used them religiously over the winter, and slowly dropped off).
Using those perfect pushup handles, I found that it was a better workout, but I could only do about half of what I would normally. So, I'm going to do the pushup challenge using the perfect pushup gear.

I ran my initial test last night, and came out at 25 pushups. Me so studly.
errmmm. Maybe not.
That puts me in rank #3 out of 7. We'll see how this goes.


In other exercise news, I went biking last night. My running buddy got trapped in Dulles airport and had to drive home from there, so no running last night. (We may run tonight.. I may go see the new Hulk movie. We'll see what all happens).

Any way, I went biking, and of course, at the halfway mark, the sky started spitting. Oh well. It was just a passing shower. The route I took was one of my favorite running routes.. It's just under 7 miles (6.95). The first half is pretty much all uphill... (Meaning, of course, the second half is pretty much all downhill)

I made it to the top, and scooted back on down the hill. Man, my back brakes squeeeeek. Holy moly. My legs are tired today, but not sore or hurting awful, so I consider it a success.

Weekend workouts

So, Friday my wife and I went to the bike store and bought her a new bike. Nice new mountain bike with hybrid tires. Got her a brain bucket and a car rack for our bikes.

Got a picture of it on her phone.. I'll have to upload it.


Saturday we went out and biked in the local neighborhood. We went out and did 2.5 miles together.. She called it a day because her butt hurt, which I can understand.. Not used to biking and all (not that I am). I went and did a couple of hill intervals for another .5, putting me at 3 for the day.
Afterwards, I was surprised she wasn't home yet, so I grabbed my water bottle and jogged to where I had left her. It was a bit of an eye opener, going running immediately after biking. My distant dreams of a triathlon are a bit farther off than I had realized. Wow. Props to all of you tri-folks.

Sunday we were going to go biking, but we kept getting delayed and delayed.. Got to be about 5:30 and my wife said for me to just go. I got all suited up, and it started raining. Dejected, I came inside.

I debated for about 30 seconds and decided I'd go for a run. My wife fully supported that venture, because apparently I'd been a bit cranky all day. She said I'd 'feel better' (read: I'd be out of her hair). She even saw me looking dejected about not using my water bottle, and suggested I use the CamelBak.

Great idea! So, I strapped that on and headed out into the muggy & rainy weather. I decided to go running in a neighborhood I'd never run in before.. That was kind of fun. This area has recently been redone to allow for a highway to be re-routed/engineered/etc. At one point, I started running along a sidewalk, and it looped to someone's front door. Oops. Turn around!

Along the way, I saw this sidewalk which cut under an overpass which I'd never seen before from the car... I opted to take it on the way back. It cut over to the area near one of my old apartments, so I decided to run by it for old time's sake. Still the same. Hehe.
I continued on down the street and was speculating how long the run would be. My guess was 6 miles.

I got to about a half mile from my house and my knee started aching, around the IT band area. Man oh man.. I stretched it out and jogged home, but later that night it was twinging when I'd walk up stairs.

Seems OK today, but I don't want to re-aggravate it. I'll have to do more stretching.


So, this past week, I exercised 5 days. 3 running, 2 biking. Not bad. Hopefully I'll put in another 5 days this week. My running buddy is supposed to be back and around most of the week, so I'm hoping for a good solid week of running. With the 3 day weekend, I'm hoping to get some exercise in over the weekend too.

That's all for now...

Wednesday Morning Thoughts

So, I'm running 45 minutes behind today.. I hate that. That just means I'll be late to pretty much everything today. Oh well.

I love shopping online. I ordered something Monday night from newegg, I just received notification that it will be delivered this afternoon. I didn't need to go hunting around town for it. Perfect.

So, yesterday I received word that one of my friends here at work is leaving. I'm happy for him, I really am. He was in a department which was basically said that they'd be fired in 9-12 months, but should keep working like dogs in the meantime. He found a job with another local company, so that's good. It's just a bummer that he's leaving. If I ever need a break during the day, I can go see him and chat for a bit. He inserts that bit of randomness into work.. if he comes to your office, you just have no idea what he'll be asking about or talking about next. That's fun.
Best wishes, man.


On a lighter note, I went biking last night. Clocked in a little over 6.25 miles, mixing in some good hills. Cramped up pretty good on the way back home... I suspect my muscles are being taxed in new and exciting ways. Getting better at the toe clip thing, too. (Not perfect, by any means).

While biking, I was riding with traffic. At one point, along a very busy stretch of road, I spied an interesting sight coming at me. There was some kid, probably 14 years old, standing on his bike, coming at me. Hmm. What to do with two bikers coming at each other on the same side of the road. While I was in awe of the kid's balance, and knew that he was a better biker than I'll ever be, and certainly had way more coordination than I could ever fathom, he was being a clown in a bad place. It's bikers like that which give bikers a bad name. Not that I do everything 100% correct, but I'm at least on the correct side of the road.

On the way to work this morning, there was another joker on a bike. A guy, probably 25, all buff and everything biking on the wrong side of the road. He was the type that looked like they were all that and such. Hey, fool, high school is over. Get on the proper side of the road.

OK, that's all. I'm supposed to be paying attention to this conference call I'm on.. :-)

What did you do this weekend?

I had a fairly nice weekend, I must admit.

Saturday was perfect weather.. it was about 73 and sunny. I went for a bike ride in the morning, put a little more than 5 miles in. The hills in the area totally owned my quads.
A friend of mine said, "I don't know how you'll be, but I can't really get a good workout on a bike." He must be in waaaaay better shape than I am.

My wife threw a 'surprise' birthday party for me that evening. We basically had a barbecue over at our place. Turned out well.. good turnout. I think we had 13 friends & family over.

Sunday was a bit of a lazy day. Stayed up too late Friday playing my new PS3, and was up late Saturday. So, I rested in my birthday present hammock and kicked back most of the afternoon.

I'm in the process of reading 'War and Peace'. Really.
No, I'm not really enjoying it. I'm at page 1000 as of yesterday, so I figure I may as well finish it.
I do like the 'war' parts. The 'peace' parts, well... My big issue is this.. I don't like to have to keep track of lots of different characters. If there are lots of people, I may as well pay attention to the real world. I had trouble with another book like this- 'Pride and Prejudice'. (As one of my faithful blog readers will remember reading that with me. :) ). Lots and lots of characters. So little going on.
You'd think it'd be easy, if the characters aren't doing anything. But noooo.. It's all these subtle soap opera interactions that come into play later on in the story.
Blah.

Last night we watched an old Denis Leary movie called 'The Ref'. Cute. It's one of those chick flicks a guy can stand to watch.

How about that George Carlin passing thing? Wow. I had always wondered about going to see him, and I figured the next time he came to town (which he used to do every few years), that maybe I'd go. Guess I won't be now.
But seriously, that's too bad.

Well, that's about it for now. Catch up with you later

Biking

I haven't ridden a bike in 14 years. The last bike I had was a 10 speed Huffy (or something similar). I hopped on the bike my friend let me borrow the other night.

Let's just say I looked silly.

Aye carumba.


I managed, somehow, to get the chain off the gears at one point. I'll guess that I tried shifting too far too fast or something like that.

My biggest nemesis, apart from my puny quads, are the toe clips on the bike. For those that don't know, toe clips are these 'cages' that go over the top part of the pedal, which you can put your foot into. The idea is that your foot is firmly secured on the bike (but not too secure in case of an emergency/fall/etc), and that you can also use your leg to pull the pedal upward and make better use of your energy expenditure.

That all sounds good, no? Well, the design of these pedals is that at rest, the cage is on the bottom. Yes, you read that right.

So, at a stop, you can flip one of the pedals over and put your foot in the straps. No big deal. The big deal is the second foot. If you do it while you're stopped, you'll get your second foot in, sure. You'll also be lying sideways on the pavement as you've tipped over.
So, the art is to get going and then, nonchalantly, kick the pedal right side up, and smoothly insert your foot.

I am not very coordinated.

Certainly not enough for a finesse move like that.


So, I pedaled around on the bottoms of the pedals. We'll try again some other day.

Bicycle bicycle

A friend of mine was nice enough to let me borrow this. Ideally I'd like to ride to work regularly. I cleaned it up yesterday and oiled the chain.. I'm the limiting factor now........